


Ascending Rain

by evendimension



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Crime, Drama & Romance, Drugs, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lovehate, M/M, Mafia EXO, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Character Death, Murder, Past Child Abuse, Prostitution, Smut, Underage Sex, Violence, Yakuza
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2019-09-28 02:48:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 44,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17174441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evendimension/pseuds/evendimension
Summary: The tale of a brilliant, idealistic lawyer, Do Kyungsoo and the notorious Kai, heir to the largest clan in the Yakuza. As they get more and more tangled in lust, deceit and lies to tear each other apart, they battle against the scariest thought there ever was… they might not want to win after all.(The entire story is complete, will be updating chapters every couple of days. Also, Gangster Kai is the sexiest bitch to ever walk the earth.)





	1. Lady Rokujo

_(Rokudaime: Sixth successor, Irezumi: Traditional Japanese Tattoo)_

I sit at the dinner table, wearing my best smile. I’m so used to it now; don’t even need to think of interesting replies anymore. A nod here, a sympathetic smile there and a well-practiced, breathtaking laugh at the right moment, and people forget what they were speaking about and have that irritating awed look in their eye. Then my thoughts are free to wander around my head and go to the depraved and filthy parts of it I love to linger in.

“Jongin? The _salt.”_ Kyungsoo’s eyebrow is raised; it may have been the third time he asked. Oops.        

“Of course!” I laugh with the appropriate amount of embarrassment sprinkled in; the boy at the other end of the table is unimpressed.

“You have the most beautiful complexion.” Kyungsoo’s mother gushes, she likes me, I suppose. I am the first friend her son brought home after all. “I don’t think I have ever seen anyone with such golden skin.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s because he’s a cross breed,” Kyungsoo explains before artfully taking a bite of his tiramisu, “like a cockapoo.”

“Soo! That’s rude.” Mrs. Do hisses, “Don’t use words like that!”’

“What? It’s a real breed of Dog.”

“He’s right Sun mi-San,” I say, “They are quite adorable.”  If I wanted my brain to atrophy, I would have taken up drugs like my numerous glassy eyed colleagues, but I like to think I’m better than that. But this conversation is eroding my grey matter and I am sure most of my cortex is gone already.

“Oh,” Sun mi laughs, “Then it must be an accurate description.” She says.

“A cross of what?” Kyungsoo’s father asks, he has been distinctly uncomfortable speaking Japanese when they have a guest with a Korean name.

“I’m only half Korean, but my parents are full Japanese.” I smile, and the Do family doesn’t know how to react, even Kyungsoo’s spoon is frozen near his mouth, he’s probably shocked that he didn’t know until now, “because I’m adopted.” no I didn’t tell you Kyungsoo, because it’s fucking obvious. My adoptive parents look _nothing_ like me, or my sister. Dimwit.

“Oh!” Sun mi says again, can she say anything else? “Do you know anything of your biological parents?”

“Sun mi…” her husband laughs sheepishly, obviously embarrassed by her lack of tact, maybe that’s where Kyungsoo got it from. “That question is a little personal, isn’t it honey?” 

She has the grace to look embarrassed. “Its fine Do-San, it’s only natural to be curious.” I say, Kyungsoo has stuffed his mouth with food again, so he is trying not to say the words that surely remain perched at the tip of his tongue, but he is listening. “Unfortunately, I remember nothing of my biological parents. I do understand Korean, but I’m afraid I don’t speak it.”

“I see,” Sun mi nods, as if the reasons for why I was so different finally dawned on her, “But you seem to have taken well to your new family Jongin-Kun. You are so very brave.”

“Thank you.” I manage a small smile, restraining my desire to throw her condescending remark back in her face, it looks forced I’m sure. Hopefully, they will attribute it to the sadness I must be filled with.

“Here, have some more dessert, please dear.” She serves me the last of the Tiramisu, the Tiramisu Kyungsoo had been reaching for, and Do-San had been eyeing from the last ten minutes. I really wish she hadn’t.

“Sun mi, He doesn’t even like sweets!”

“He’s a guest, be nice to him.”

“Your mother is fond of spoiling everyone but us, Kyungsoo.” Do-San pouts, looking no older than his son.

“Let him have it Oto-San, you guys are being incredibly embarrassing.”

Huh. They are bickering like I’m not even here. This is what dinner in the Do household must be like every day. No, this is how families everywhere have dinner. All filled with loving irritation and familiarity.

“Sun mi –San?” I say her name almost timidly, “Do-San can have it. Thank you.” She looks so sad, that I think I may have overplayed the timidity. Please let him have it so we can end this farce.

“No, Thank _you_!” Do-San reaches over the table for the plate I’m holding out, “See? I told you.”

The rest of the short visit goes more or less in the same way. A few words about school, a few tales from Kyungsoo’s perfect and apparently very cheerful childhood, goodbye’s and requests to drop by more often. Then he and I are walking back towards the bus stop.

“So, what did you think?” He asks me.

“Of what?”

“You know, of my house and my room and stuff, and dinner?”

“It was alright.”

He huffs and turns his head away from me, “You are a hard guy to impress Jongin.”

“I wouldn’t say that...” I would, actually. There are exactly two people on this planet that I’m impressed by and no one from the Do family is included. Except Kyungsoo maybe… _maybe_. “Your parents seem very happy, it looks like a nice family.”

“Looks like?” Kyungsoo turns back towards me. He seems to be considering whether to take the words sarcastically as I meant them or as genuinely as they sounded, “I suppose we do.” He settles on finally, cleverly dodging the unspoken question, “Like yours?”

Now, this could be taken in two ways as well, at the face of it appears innocent, but he has successfully turned my question back at me. Well… “Mine is quieter.” I shrug, “And less argumentative about dessert.”

“Right.” Kyungsoo stops, forcing me to stop too and turn to look at him. I raise an eyebrow, urging him to get on with it.

“Jongin I…” he begins, “I…” Nope. Not going to finish the sentence for yout. Take the effort and string words together, you’re supposed to be a genius.

“Goddammit Jongin! I did not mean to…about yesterday.”

“What?”

“I did not mean to do _that_.”

“Punch me, threaten to kill me or leave these on my neck?” I pull down the collar of my shirt to reveal purple marks of crushing fingers, his face pales and he is unable to meet my eyes.

“Yes, I-” Kyungsoo breaths out, “It won’t happen again.”

 _Pride…_ he wouldn’t apologize, “To be fair, I did irritate you.” I avert my eyes in a near innocent gesture of shyness, “I was rather…provocative.”

“Well ahh…” He swallows; it’s a very visible up and down motion of his throat, “ _No._ You did not deserve that, nobody does. I was needlessly cruel.”

Yes, he was. He was careful to hit me where he knew it wouldn’t be seen, and rather vicious in how he did it. I was surprised to find that that side would so readily come to the surface. It was there, I knew, which is why I was bothering with him in the first place, but it’s buried under years of societal conditioning.

“I’ll be off then,” I say. “It was a nice dinner Kyungsoo. I actually don’t mind doing it again.” Smile, walk away, and don’t look back. Three…Two…One...

“Jongin, wait.”

 I halt, suppressing my smile, “Yeah?”

“Kimiko and I are going to Akihabara tomorrow.”

_What?_

“She wants to go shopping.” He says, smiling fondly, “You could come along, it would be more tolerable if you went with us.”

My hands clench where they are stuffed in my pockets. Again with the girl! What was this? I though we made progress with yesterday. But it seems he just wants me to be his ‘friend’ and is trying to include me in his pathetic little social circle.

Fine then. Let’s see how long he can stay in denial. “Sure, why not?” I turn around again, feeling all the counterfeit fragility vanish from my face. I have more important matters to attend to tonight.

The short trip downtown passes mostly in a haze. Before I know it, I’m lying face down on a cold chair, as Nobunaga San readies his tools.

“Rokudaime Sama, are you ready?” He asks, tracing the ridges of my back with his gloved, clinical hands.

“Yes.” I say, it doesn’t really matter.

“A Hannya mask is a symbol of great luck.” He says, as he sterilizes my skin. A wooden paddle and a needle with silk string rest on a tray to the side. Being Yakuza means I have to get the tattoo done the traditional way. A lot of pain and a lot of effort go into this, and despite being the one to wear it, the design is largely in the hands of the artist. The fact that I want it in red is about all I can tell him, and he is free to disregard even that. He begins drawing the outline free hand. They don’t use stencils, because didn’t in the past.

“The Hannya represents a duality of emotion.” He says, as the first prick of the needle pierces through my skin, “It is the tale of Lady Rokujo, a woman so gorgeous that she was known all over the Empire. The Prince was so taken by her beauty that he married her. She was next in line to be the Empress. But life was unkind to Lady Rokujo, the Prince passed away, she could no longer be Empress, and she was plunged into a terrible sadness. Till one day, she met a warrior named Genji, handsome and powerful, he swept her off her feet.”

It’s really starting to sting now, but he shows no signs of stopping as he continues without pause, poking color into my skin.

“Theirs was a torrid love affair, and soon they became the talk of town. You see, the warrior was already married to someone else.” He wipes the blood off my skin, “Lady Aoi was her name. And she was pregnant with Genji’s child.”

“Nice going Genji.” I say, digging my nails into the seat, can’t this guy give me a break?

“Genji and Lady Aoi had been married for a few years and there was no real love between them,” Nobunaga San sounds like he’s frowning, “Theirs was a marriage born of necessity, as was common at the time. He was just doing his duty.”

“Yeah.” Real standup guy, “What happened next?”

“Lady Aoi humiliated Lady Rokujo one day, and Genji said nothing in her defense. You see, he was falling in love with Lady Aoi now that she carried his child. He harbored only lust for Lady Rokujo, and she had mistaken it for something more. Nonetheless, she grew insane in her jealousy, took the form a demon, and killed Lady Aoi.”

“I thought we wore the Hannya as a symbol of good luck.” A jealous Demon overcome by emotions is hardly something one would want to carry on their back forever.

“Ah but it is, Rokudaime Sama.” Nobunaga says. He’s using blue ink. Complete disregard for what I want then, great. “It is a symbol of power. It says that you will never forgive your enemies, and that to cross you, is a fate worse than death. It is perfect for you.”

A symbol of power, huh? We’ll see.


	2. A Lamb's Life

_(Oba-San: Grandmother, or old lady; Oji-San: Grandfather, or old man;  Ema: Wooden block on which prayers are written in Shinto Shrines; Yukata: A more casual version of the Kimono)_

“Wow.” Kimiko sighs, the first bite of her strawberry ice cream melting in her mouth, “This is the best ice cream I have ever had.”

Kyungsoo laughs, digging into his slice of cake, “That’s what you said about the last place we ate.”

“I hadn’t eaten here then, had I?” She says, waving her spoon in the air, “Never be afraid of replacing the old with the new, especially if it’s yummier.”

“True that…” He looks for the millionth time towards the entrance, restless somehow. Like he hadn’t expected to be kept waiting so long and now wasn’t sure if who he was supposed to meet would show up or not.

“Who is this guy anyway?” Kimiko asks, looking at her ice cream, trying to seem nonchalant, “He’s late.”

“A schoolmate. No one special. I’m getting tired of waiting for him.” He says, not the least bit interested in making conversation, then he smiles, “I’m being lousy company, aren’t I?”

“No, not at all!” Kimiko says quickly, not wanting to upset him, “I’m having fun.”

“No, I am.” Kyungsoo says, “It’s just that I’m not used to this sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?” Kimiko asks.

“Aren’t we on a date?”

Kimiko is surprised, she blinks at him for a beat, “Yeah, I guess we are.” She says, and the words light up his entire face. Kimiko tries to stop herself, but she can’t help staring. God, it was difficult not to, he looks so perfect. Blue cardigan over his white t-shirt, it brings out the molten brown of his perfect, wide eyes. It’s so rare that he laughs so fully, and the throaty timbre of voice makes its even richer. She really hopes this friend of his doesn’t show up.

“Kyungsoo…” Someone says just then. A young man is walking up to their table; the one Kyungsoo was waiting for, no doubt. Kimiko tries not to look too disappointed.

“Jongin. You’re late.”

“I got held up by a cheesecake.” Kyungsoo knits his eyebrows in a mix of confusion and annoyance, somehow accurately conveying ‘don’t be ridiculous,’ with his expression.

“They can be vicious,” Jongin shrugs.

Their banter continues, something about cheesecake being a euphemism that Kimiko did not understand. And neither bothers with her existence till she clears her throat, upon which Kyungsoo indicates to her with his hand, “This is Amai Kimiko, a friend.”

The boy looks her over once, strange eyes sweeping her entire body from head to toe, and then he smiles at her, “Yamakichi Jongin, pleased to meet you.” He bows, Kimiko nods, not sure what to make of him yet.

As they walk through the crowded Chuo Dori street of Akihabara, they are surrounded by computer geeks and shimmery eyed tourists speaking atrocious Japanese, very few words are spoken between the three. Kimiko can’t help but think she’s the only one finding the silence awkward.

They are so different, the two on either side of her, she can’t help but compare. Kyungsoo is handsome, wholesome, everything about him reassuring and dependable, while Jongin is more…she doesn’t know how to put it. He is polite, good looking too, _preposterously so_ , but it’s a feral sort beauty, the kind that predators possess.

And maybe because of these differences, they seem to have some strange sort of tension between them. Each one is fully tuned to the others’ presence and trying to seem like they aren’t. It sets them apart from everyone else, including her, like they are on some other plane where only the two of them exist.

“You look a little down, what’s wrong?” Kyungsoo asks her while Jongin is being accosted by two girls handing out pamphlets in maid costumes. She wants to say that they have successfully managed to decimate her interest in shopping with all their wordless antagonism. But what would they do then? Be even more awkwardly silent?

Kyungsoo is still waiting for a reply, the way he is standing in front of her now, the sun shines behind his head like a halo, “We should go somewhere; we have the whole day ahead of us. You did want to go shopping?” He nods, “Right?”

“Yes…” Kimiko finds herself nodding along with him, and she shakes her head to snap out of it.

“Kimiko?”

She sighs, “Well, I didn’t really want to _shop_ shop, you know?” She says, looking at the long row of electronic stores that Akihabara is famous for, “I have only one place I want to go. A small store that sells Polaroid cameras, an old lady there designs Yukata as a hobby. She has really unique designs and the girls who shop in Aoyama will never know where I got it from!”

“Alright, lead the way then.” Jongin says, leaning away when one of the disappointed maids tries to grab his arm.

And they walk ahead again, taking one of the numerous side roads from the main Chuo Dori. The shops grow more cramped together and less flashy, some of these are here from World War II and are still selling almost the same stuff they did back then. And among these tiny little stores with mountains of electronics, there is one that has a glass door covered entirely in Polaroid photos, some, decades old. In front of it sat a man whose face was hidden by the newspaper in his hands. When they stop in front of the store, he doesn’t spare them a glance as he puts his newspaper away, grumbling something incoherent, and letting them in the shop.

An older man, with the most unfriendly expression Kimiko has ever seen is sitting behind the cash counter. He looks almost exactly the same as he did the last time she had come here, same clothes even. She asks him about the Yukata, and he hollers his wife’s name at the top his lungs.

 “Wait here.” He says, “Who is this Yukata for?” he asks, putting on his glasses to peer at the three of them. Then he squints some more when he looks at Jongin and abruptly stands up, looking absolutely terrified.

“Ya-Yamakichi-Kun!”

Jongin did not seem to recognize him, but he smiles anyway. “We just came to see some Yukata for the lady.”

“Ha-hai, hai…” the man says, looking nervously at Kyungsoo now. He is breaking out in a sweat when his wife appears at the doorway. He pushes her into the adjoining room, muttering apologies.

The man with the newspaper was bowing to Jongin too, looking equally terrified, “We are sorry, Yamakichi-Kun, we were not aware that you would be visiting.” He says so fast that Kimiko almost misses it entirely.

“That’s quite alright Oji-San,” Jongin smiles,   he doesn’t look embarrassed or confused by the fussing at all, almost like he’s used to this sort of thing.

Kimiko leans in to ask Kyungsoo about it, but the store owner comes back outside followed by his wife. She takes Kimiko’s hand and more or less drags her into the room she just came from, promptly shutting the sliding door that separated it from the rest of the store.

She buzzes around Kimiko like she’s a princess. Laying out some of the most beautiful and detailed Yukata she has ever seen. She couldn’t even believe it, Kimiko she had no idea that this Oba-San made so many of them. She would usually show her only one or two pieces, and they were nowhere near this gorgeous.

“Wow, this is awesome. You’ve been working hard haven’t you? I didn’t know you made these many!”

“Oh yes, yes, Kimiko San, anything for you!” The old lady smiles, “We keep these designs for special customers.” Kimiko- _San_? Where did the respect suddenly come from? “You put this one on, I will help you, you will love it and so will your boyfriend.” She waggles her eyebrows, since when does she do that? What is going on? “It’s my masterpiece, you’re a little too skinny but, we can fix that, you come here on the day of the event, okay?”

“Uh, but I don’t think I can afford this,” Kimiko says, as her arms are being maneuvered into the Yukata. Where have her clothes gone? Oh but the design is so exquisite, delicate pink cherry blossoms that run down the sleeves on a glossy black surface. The material feels heavenly on her skin, and when she is pushed in front of the mirror and a silver embroidered Obi is wrapped around her waist, she quiets down and lets the old lady do what she wants.

The sliding doors open and she steps out into the store. The three men stop the conversation they were engrossed in, and she smiles when Kyungsoo looks a little shocked, “You look great.”

“Very,” Jongin says, looking impressed, “Are you getting this one?”

“I don’t think I can afford it. It’s beautiful though,” she says to the old lady, feeling guilty for all the trouble she went through, “I only want a simple one.”

“Oh,” Kyungsoo nods, staring at her, “Well, whichever you want.”

“Yes, yes! Anything!” the old man says, and Kimiko bows in apology, the old lady takes her back inside and begins helping her out of the Kimono. Again, Kimiko can’t understand what all the hassle is about, “Oba-San?”

“Yes?”

“You know Jongin-Kun?” She asks, and the old lady stops undoing the ties for a second to look at her bewildered, “What? Is he from some important family or something?”

“You don’t know?” The old woman pulls Kimiko’s face closer, and upon seeing something in her confused expression, lets her go again, “Baka! You are an idiot!” She hisses, and yanks the Yukata off her shoulders in hurried, tense movements, “Do your parents know you’re here?” She whispers, handing her blouse and skirt back.

“Yes, they do, I came here with my friend…” Kimiko feels a sense of unrest creeping up her spine, “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t say more, forget I said anything.” A white Yukata with a little bit of pink detailing is shoved into Kimiko’s hands.

“Hey, wait! Oba-San!”

Kimiko walks closer to Kyungsoo when they leave the store, holding another Yukata the owner insisted on giving her as a complimentary gift. He was even quieter than before. Fiddling with a Polaroid camera he had in his hands, also courtesy of the old man from the shop.

“My father knows the owner.” Jongin says.

“I see.” Kimiko says, and it comes out a little curt.

“Sorry about all the weirdness…” He adds slowly, seeming to detect a change in Kimiko’s behavior.

“She used to be so rude; I was surprised that she could be so nice.” She laughs, trying to bring the cheer back into her voice.

He gives her an assessing look, eyebrows knit together. It reminds her of Kyungsoo for some reason, and then turns to stare solemnly at a Cosplayer dressed as a Samurai across the street. And the silence returns again, less awkward but more tense.

Kimiko feels an overwhelming urge to fix this situation. They could all go their separate ways now that she had gotten what she came for, but she wants to end this on a good note, and hopefully be counted as one of Jongin’s friends, or at least an acquaintance. She thinks Kyungsoo wants them to be friends, so she would make an attempt to do it. They would have to go somewhere that required less talking, where they could focus on something else in silent companionship.

A woman in the white and red garb of a shrine maiden runs after the Samurai Cosplayer shouting profanities. Maybe she had a place in mind…

“Say, we still have a lot of time left, we could go to The Kanda Myojin, to wish for luck. It would be a great start for our new friendship, won’t it?”

They don’t seem to mind.

The Kanda Shrine is thing of beauty. It shines a brilliant Vermilion in the gleaming morning light, radiating an aura of peace and calm. Kyungsoo has always loved this place. It was home to two of the Seven Gods of Fortune, Daikokuten and Ebisu, because of which it’s a popular place to pray for good luck and prosperity. But Kyungsoo usually visits this place to pay homage to the third Kami enshrined here, he who isn’t a Kami at all, but a man.

Taira no Masakado was a samurai of the Heian period. His time was one of the most chaotic in the early history of the samurai. Complete with earthquakes, rainbows and lunar eclipses in the capital and rife with uprisings in the north and a pirate nuisance in the west. He had risen up fearlessly against his oppressors, leading a rebellion against the central Kyoto government. Masakado had then been elevated to the status of a god for his achievements. Such stories made Kyungsoo want to etch his name in the history books as well.

The Shrine usually has a long line of IT people seeking blessings, but it’s fairly empty today. Now they have with them the wooden Ema on which they would they would write their prayers. Kyungsoo had finished his ten minutes ago, but Kimiko and Jongin are hell bent on making their Ema stand out from the rest.

Kimiko is making manga versions of the three of them, she wants to be a manga artist after all, so she was furiously adding all the details possible, whereas Jongin was making a highly suggestive Ukiyo-e on his. Even though the sign very clearly says anything resembling porn was strictly prohibited. Kyungsoo wonders if he knows Masakado’s story, he would have to tell it to him once.

“What does yours say Soo?” Kimiko asks, trying to sneak a look at his Ema, “You didn’t draw anything on it?” she sounds disappointed.

“I don’t want the Kami to get confused,” he says, “I just asked that we all get what we really wish for.” He can’t think of anything more complex or interesting to write. He doesn’t believe in all this anyway.

“Oh, that’s nice, I asked that we all come here at the same time next year, as friends.” She says, tying hers up with the others, “And you, Jongin-kun?”

“I asked for a fulfilling sex-life,” He says, looking at Kyungsoo, “with illustrations.”

“Oh.” Kimiko laughs, but it seems forced, just like everything she did after they left the Yukata shop. Very unusual for her. Is she tired or has she figured something out? “That’s important too, I guess.” She says, and turns around to take the camera from Kyungsoo’s hands. “You know what? I think we should take pictures, you have a camera now, so let’s put it to use.”

So, they do take a picture. Kimiko is showing all teeth in what could be a smile if you squint, the sun gets in Kyungsoo’s eyes and he’s pretty sure he blinked, and Jongin is looking off into the distance somewhere.

They all laugh at the photo, and after that, something changes between the three of them. They joke with each other like old friends all the way back. Kimiko waves goodbye from the platform, she looks much calmer.

“She’s nice,” Jongin says, as they sit back down, “does she know you’re a lying bastard?”

“I didn’t lie to her about anything.” Kyungsoo says, technically, that’s true. “What was the need to give her your real name?”

“I wanted to see if she would recognize it,” Jongin settles back into a more comfortable position, “but you’re in luck Kyungsoo, she’s a pure little girl with a perfect sheltered life who never had any reason to learn the name of only the largest Yakuza faction in the world.”

A woman who was sitting next to Kyungsoo whips her head in their direction, alarm clear in her spectacled eyes. Kyungsoo gives her his most beatific smile, she quickly turns her attention back to her cell phone, “Are you crazy?”

Jongin shrugs, “Crazy, psychotic, homicidal, take your pick, they are all relative terms anyway.”

Kyungsoo sighs, pinching his nose with two fingers. Jongin and his sister went by the family name Kim at school, and very few people knew his real identity as the heir to one of Japan’s most infamous Yakuza factions, the Yamakichi Gumi.

It was no easy feat that they managed that, anyone who found out had met less than pleasant fates. And Jongin had just casually dropped his real last name as if it was the most inconspicuous thing in the world.

“At first, I thought there was a chance she figured out who I was and just had the best poker face in the world, but she had no idea, not until the Yukata shop…”

“The old woman?”

“Mmm…” Jongin says, “Shame, my sister will now have to look for a new designer.”

“It’s still not certain that she told. What is going to happen to her?” And all he gets is a shrug in response, what do you think will happen? It says. Kyungsoo can imagine.

“Don’t worry though; nothing is going to happen to your precious Kimiko,” Jongin says, “She seems too normal, too plebeian for you.”

“She’s just a friend.”

“And what? This whole meeting was for me to be friends with her too?”

No, it wasn’t. To be honest, Kyungsoo hadn’t been thinking straight when he invited Jongin to go with him. He had not been able to have a single moment’s peace after dinner that night, because he had extended the invitation on an impulse, and he never did things impulsively. Part of him wondered if it was because he wanted to see how Jongin would react and behave with someone in an environment that was…well, different from the usual ones they frequented.

“What if it was?” Kyungsoo asks, suddenly curious. He is bringing Kimiko in the direct attention of a Yakuza, and he finds it is not as upsetting as he thought it would be to play with a lamb’s life.

“Answering a question with a question…that’s just like you.” Jongin is looking at him in that way again, gaze probing and prying, almost as if he knows why Kyungsoo is asking him, like he knows _him_. And it makes him want to strangle the guy and also screw him senseless…preferably at the same time. What is it that Jongin sees in him that everyone else misses? Or is it that Jongin is the only one that could bring it out? Kyungsoo’s cruelty.

“If it was, I would probably torment you by dropping hints about your true sadistic self and ensure every interaction between you two would be painful at best.” Jongin finally answers. He waits for Kyungsoo to dispute what he said, Kyungsoo doesn’t. “You’re only talking to her because of her uncle, aren’t you?”

“Why? What about her uncle?” Kyungsoo asks, and Jongin turns away, shaking his head and effectively putting a stop to any more conversation.

Yes, Kyungsoo knows. Kimiko is the beloved niece of an extremely prominent politician. Not many knew because her parents live a fairly simple life, but Kyungsoo had gone through the trouble of finding out.

He isn’t obligated to tell Jongin, because Jongin is part of his plan too. 


	3. Priorities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timeline in this story is not linear, it will keep switching between past and present. Bear with me my dudes.

_(Yopparai Hana: Drunken Flower, Waga: young lord, Oyabun: Lord/boss, Uruse na: Shut up, Gae Sekiyah: (Korean) Bastard)_

It’s the final year of Law school and I am being escorted like a prisoner into our club,  _The Yopparai Hana_. My steps are slow, as I am boxed in by the two men in front of me and have to keep Chen from bumping into my back, where the cotton of my shirt sticks uncomfortably from being drenched in blood and in rain, it makes the irezumi burn, I don’t think it’s supposed to do that.

The guard at the entrance lets us in while giving me a concerned look, probably wondering how I was upright despite looking like I was a slight nudge away from death. It amazes me yet again when the long line of patrons at the entrance doesn’t immediately disperse looking at us. They watch me as I go in, with a certain awe and fear in their eyes. They always do. Why do they come here week after week? They are all good, innocent people, they have other more important things to do with their lives.

Unsurprisingly, there are even more people inside, all undulating in the sweaty mix of drugs, alcohol and thumping bass. But they move away to make room for us, they must sense the restlessness radiating off of Chen, it’s so strong that I feel it snaking along my spine.

“The fuck man!?” He yells loud enough to be heard over the roaring, deafening music, one of the men escorting us was shoving him forward repeatedly, he had now been pressed up against a wall with a sheathed Katana at his throat.

Chen, whose real name no one knows, must have looked absolutely terrifying with his neon green hair glowing against his ghoul pale skin, the guard, who was obviously new and lacked the sense to listen to the others’ warnings, makes some poor attempt at apologizing, trying to speak against the crushing force at his throat. The others would not aid him because they respected us too much.

“Uruse Na Gae Sekiyah!”

The kid would not understand. Chen had the habit of mixing his native Korean with Japanese, especially when he was as frustrated as this. I have half a mind to leave him here, but the Yakuza are trying to clean up their image and going by the gleam in his eye, he would most likely not give the makeover much thought.

“Chen-San…” I say,  _warning_ , and his shoulders twitch. This is the second time I had stopped him today, I usually gave him free rein so he is not used to being restricted. But the only thing that surpassed his blood lust was his loyalty to me, he would readily drown himself in acid if I ask him to. He eases the pressure on the boy’s neck and pats him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry Jongin-nim, I was just playing…just playing,” He brings his face close to the kid’s, “Right?” he asks, and the guard nods vigorously, “I’ll come kill you later,” Chen says, smiling in that bone chilling way of his, “Don’t touch me again, got it?” The boy bows a million times and moves to the back of the group, he would behave from now on.

“Yah! Lots of pretty girls in the club today, Jongin-Nim,” Chen is making conversation like we hadn’t just murdered… _I can’t even think his name_ , the second most important member of the Yakuza hierarchy, strangely I don’t feel any different either. Detachment? Is it going to hit me later? I hope not, the bastard does not deserve it.

We pass through the area with tables and make our way up the stairs to the next level, where the air was choking on cigarette smoke and the seats were filled with the most stereotypically gangster individuals on the planet. Complete with heavy chains on their necks and those flowery silk shirts that I despise.

“You should pay more attention to your surroundings Jongin-nim, about a dozen girls threw themselves at you. You completely missed it!”

The guards at the entrance to the Oyabun’s private booth bow low, and I give them a nod, no one else would get in. The lights in the club take on a decidedly sinister tone when they flash red instead of the blue they were moments ago, and the ear-splitting beat transforms into a muted booming.

I don’t lift my head as I walk in, keeping my eyes averted from the Oyabun’s, and kneel a respectable distance away. Chen does too. The entertainers from the club are still with her, but she is not engaged with them. One has a knife buried to the hilt in his thigh. She’s upset.

“Oyabun.”

For a few moments, she doesn’t say anything and all I hear is the hiss of cigarette smoke blown through her lips. “Kai,” She says, her low voice carrying with it the unmistakable weight of authority and quiet simmering anger, “Who are you?”

I swallow, “Yamakichi  Kai, Adopted son of the fifth Oyabun and future Heir of the Yamakichi Gumi.” The couch creaks as she rises, and the sound of her wooden slippers indicate she is walking towards us, her feet stop just a short distance from me. She places the edge of her katana on my head.

“And what were you before I picked you up from the streets,” She taps the flat of her blade on the side of my head “hmmm?” I look up at her, a mistake. She slaps the blade against my cheek,  _hard_ , it whips my head to the side and for a moment the only sound I hear is ringing. Warm blood drips down my chin to fall on my already scarlet white shirt. “Ungrateful cur,” She says, grabbing my chin to examine the damage calmly, “I don’t want to ruin your face, so answer me.”

My breath comes in shudders, but I don’t respond and continue staring at her. I did what I had to do to survive, that part of my life was over, and to the current me, it never existed. She laughs, smoky and ruff, “You’re too ashamed to say it, aren’t you?” She gestures in a wide circle, “Even here? Surrounded by  _these_  people?”

I still don’t answer, and a sudden crushing force at the back of my head brings the floor rushing up to meet my face, the world seems to tilt and sway under me, “Without me you are nothing!  I gave you a life, I made you, and this?  _This_  is how you repay me?” I can barely see through the blood that trickles into my eye, “You will pay for this.” She says and pulls me up by my hair to throw me against the low table. A man brings her a Tanto knife. Silver handle, shimmering blade. She throws it on the table in front of me, a piece of silk cloth already waiting.

I know what is to come.

***

“Oh my god you’re a liar!” Kimiko laughs and punches Kyungsoo playfully on the shoulder, “You aced your interview. You ace everything!”

But no, Kyungsoo hadn’t. A whole life of perfect grades, hard work and hours and hours and hours of studying, and it was all for naught. Though he found Kimiko’s starry-eyed innocence endearing at times, it is absolutely abhorrent at the moment.

“Please do not rub it in.”

The sparkle in Kimiko’s eyes disappears so quickly he almost regrets having said that. “Sorry.” She says and puts a little distance between them. She does that very often these days. Any perceived flaring of his temper would be met with the same icy, self-preserving reaction. Does he look that frightening when he’s angry?

“I-I didn’t mean to be rude.” He says, but she doesn’t respond and the mood of the whole conversation deteriorates.  Kyungsoo hates it when this happens. Why is it that everything he tries with Kimiko has the opposite of the desired effect? Why can he never do anything right with her?

He has a pounding headache already, and all the aspirin in the world is not going to help him. “Look, the firm that just turned me down is one of the biggest in the country. I had been dreaming of getting a job there my whole life. So, I’m a little upset.”

“It’s okay, you’ll find another job.” She says with a shrug, “It’s just  _one_  of the best firms in the country, right? So, there are still others.”

Yes, she is right. Under normal circumstances, he would have told himself the same thing, but this time is different. As things stand, he has very, very limited career options right now, and none of them look too promising, none of them the kind of job he sees himself doing. His career has to go in a certain direction, the direction he had planned for it to go, and he would not settle for anything else.

_“Rejected. I don’t like your face.”_

Hamada Ryoshi _,_ a legend in the world of law and a man Kyungsoo had always looked up to, had said those words. No reason, no explanation. That’s all, without even looking at him. He had never felt more insulted in his life. Yet, he had not said anything for a few seconds, thinking it was some kind of test, a method of gauging his ability to react appropriately. Then he noticed that the other members of the board looked confused and shocked, no one said anything, and Kyungsoo knew it had to be real. He had been rejected.

“Can I at least have a more substantial explanation?” He had asked, and Hamada had promptly ignored him, calling for the next candidate. Sometimes Kyungsoo forgets what insufferable assholes lawyers are.

But Kyungsoo was stubborn and furious, so had decided not to leave until he had an answer. He went straight to Hamada’s office, told his secretary with his most flooring smile that he had been sent there by her boss as part of his interview. Then he seated himself at his table until all candidates had been interviewed, and Hamada returned from the board room.

The older lawyer had just laughed when he saw him there, “I was half expecting you to do that.” He said.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me why.”

“Do Kyungsoo, huh?” He sat in his swivel chair and put his legs on the table, crossed at the ankle, “The Tokyo Daigaku topper.”

“You  _did_  read my Resume.”

“Hardly an interesting read. Topped this, valedictorian that, gold medalist blah…it gets really monotonous after a while, boring stuff.” He said, “So called intellectually gifted people make the worst employees, in my opinion. I would pick a hard-working retard over you any day.”

Kyungsoo had blinked in confusion. None of what he said made any sense, was he really  _The_  Hamada Ryoshi? Was this all a joke to him? He could feel anger bubbling in his veins, the urge to throw something is almost too much to handle, but his face reveals nothing. He remains seated with his fingers clasped on his lap, the picture of serenity and self-confidence.

“Still doesn’t answer my question.” He said.

“God, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” Hamada had groaned, throwing his head back and checking his watch to make a show of how much this conversation was bothering him, “Okay, fine. You see, the thing is…I don’t like people like you. You think you’re the smartest so you hate taking orders from others. You haven’t the slightest clue about dealing with failure because you are so used to being good at  _everything_  you do.” He then sighed in a long-suffering way, “And just so you know, contrary to what most people think, I’m  _not_  one of you, I’ve had to work my ass off for everything I have achieved. Something you couldn’t relate to if you tried.”

“If that was the case, you would have hired me just to put me through hell.” Hamada would have ensured that everything in his power make Kyungsoo as miserable as possible, it would be irresistible to him, “Not hiring me, Hamada San, gives you no benefits.”

Hamada had laughed at that, “You’ll make a great lawyer kid,” he looked at him quietly for some time then, as if he was weighing the pros and cons of something he was about to do. The he took out an envelope from his coat pocket, “Take this,” he said, holding it out to him, “Open it.”

Kyungsoo had taken the manila envelope from him, hoping it was a letter of employment and that this was a test after all, but his heart stopped when he saw what it contained, and his hands went numb.

_Photographs_. The envelope contained seven damning photographs of him with his cock down Jongin’s throat, his Irezumi on full display.

He had quickly stuffed the photographs back inside and cleared his throat.

Hamada then had a serious expression on his face, “Piece of advice? Avoid things like this from getting out if you want your future clients to have faith in you, hmmm?”

Damn him. If Hamada knew, the others could too. Jongin is too important, there would always be someone watching. How would he explain that to Kimiko?  He does not know if she knew about him, they had never spoken of that incident at the Yukata shop, it was way back in freshman year, did she even remember it?

“Am I right? Other firms will hire you?” Kimiko waves her hand in front of him to draw his attention.

“Right,” Kyungsoo says, and offers her a smile that felt completely believable to him, but going by Kimiko’s expression, was probably not. She stops walking and comes to stand in front of him.

“Kyungsoo, tell me something.” She says, “Do I really look that stupid to you?”

The question takes him by surprise, he laughs at first, but her expression was a hundred percent serious. “No…”

“Really? Doesn’t seem like it. You can tell me, you know? I have a college education, happen to be a year older than you and probably can make up for in experience what I lack in inborn genius.”

Kyungsoo stares at her, mouth agape. Now that he thinks about it, he had been friends with Kimiko for around seven years now, and he had never told her anything about himself that was even remotely personal. It is always politeness and small talk, while she went on and on about what she does and what she likes and how her millionth new Manga idea would be the next big hit. He doesn’t mind that, not one bit, because some of her ideas are quite unique and fascinating, except maybe that one with a girl a heartbroken Prince and a spoilt rich boy. But he had never thought to share his problems or concerns with her, because…

“You think I’m stupid.” Kimiko says.

Well…maybe unconsciously.

“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.” He says, and steps around her to continue walking, now realizing that he had in fact underappreciated her intelligence. She isn’t a genius, but she’s not as brainless as the other people he had unwittingly been grouping her with.  _Wow!_  Intellectual ability is a hot topic today, “You have a habit of projecting your insecurities onto others, you know?”

Kimiko runs to catch up with him, “Hmmm” she peers at his face in a playfully suspicious way, and he smiles back, the very picture of innocence, “Are you afraid that the other firms will have a problem hiring you too?”

“What?” What is with her today? How is she guessing everything so accurately?

“I never said that, can we please drop it?” Kyungsoo prays she would let it go. He needs time to know how to deal with this.

She sighs, “I’ll drop it if you come to my party today.”

“You’re having a party?”

“Yeah,” A face splitting smile stretches on her face. He would have to latch on to this line of conversation.

“Don’t tell me I forgot your birthday again!”

“Its August.” She rolls her eyes.

“Oh, right. Then what’s the party for?” He asks, smiling apologetically.

“I’m throwing a party because my Manga is getting published.” She squeals, holding his hands and jumping up and down, “I know I’m supposed to feel bad about your interview, but I know you’ll get another job in no time, so I don’t care about that now, okay?” She says, “I’m sorry but I want to celebrate today, and I want you to share it with me.”

Kyungsoo is sort of surprised that his heart warms a little as he sees her smile, “I’ll be there.” He says, and would you look at that, he really wanted to be.


	4. Sullied

_(Tanto: Short Knife, Kssah: Dammit)_

It is no easy thing to organize a party. Although it seemed like it in Kimiko’s mind. It was supposed to be only a few people, just Kyungsoo, her editor, literary agent, and a handful of close friends. But now her small apartment is filled top to bottom with people, most of whom she has never met. It is nice though, to be around so much energy. Being a manga artist is a very solitary job, being surrounded by people like this, it feels like she is part of the real world again.

Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves though, and many were fascinated by her [Erotic Netsuke](http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/13077/13263096_1.jpg?v=8CF22C632ECAD90) collection. The Erotic netsuke collection she had told Kyungsoo to put away, and of course the idiot hadn’t. Instead, he had gone and made it a point to bring all the guests’ attention to it.

She had been so confused when they began asking her where she bought them and started telling her how she was quirky and unconventional for displaying them so openly.  They are a big hit, people had made a drinking game out of whether they had tried those positions themselves or not.

All Kyungsoo’s fault.  Where is he by the way?

She walks around the table filled with pleasantly drunk people, making sure to take their keys from them and winds her way to the balcony through the laughter and the music. She’s right, there he is being all broody and lonely again, with a glass of whiskey in his hands. How had he gotten to the good stuff? She would have to think of a new hiding place for her liquor now.

“Kyungsoo! There you are, I was looking everywhere for you.”

“Ah, sorry,” he says, pulling his shirt collar down, “too many people.”

“I know! Which is exactly why I need you in there. You can’t expect me to manage them all by myself? Go parade yourself around the house for me, distract the girls, huh? Please?” She says, draping herself on his arm and pouting in the way that he finds insanely irritating. He smiles, looking down from the balcony at the pedestrians passing by. He’s still worried about his job. Kimiko doesn’t think he has any reason to, but he’s going to continue anyway, like he always does.

“Um Kohoko? There are some new guests,” someone says from behind her, and Kimiko hits her head against Kyungsoo’s shoulder repeatedly.

“It’s _Kimiko,_ and are you sure it’s not the pizza guy?” She hopes it’s him, because they were quickly running out of the food Kyungsoo had prepared. The man who had told her, whom Kimiko had seen only once in her editor’s office shakes his head.

“Dunno, they seem kind of important. She’s a hottie though, so hurry up and invite her in will ya?”

“Fine,” Kimiko groans, and drags her feet to the entrance, pulling Kyungsoo along, “this is just great, more people I don’t know.” As she makes her way to the entrance, she sees a group of four people. Three men dressed in formal suits and an absolutely gorgeous girl in a kimono.

They are making a racket, and something about them makes all the other guests apprehensive. One of them is talking to her editor, who is desperately trying to calm them down. They are speaking another language and no one understands what they are saying, but it definitely sounds threatening.

Kimiko squeezes through the group of party guests. She would have to try and talk to these men outside the house, whoever they are, so she walks toward them nervously, Kyungsoo in tow. A sudden weight halts her dead in her tracks as he stops walking abruptly, “What is it?” She asks, turning to look, Kyungsoo was standing there as if nailed to the ground.

The men’s attention shifts to her, they begin yelling at her as well.

“Dakcho.” The girl says, her deep voice barely even raised. But the effect of it is instantaneous and the men comply immediately, ceasing their advance.

“Suzuna…” Kyungsoo whispers from behind Kimiko, staring at the girl in shock and confusion. The girl steps through the human barricade made by her men.

“Do San,” she bows elegantly, “And you must be Amai San,” she turns to Kimiko to do the same, who is she?

“Yes, I’m sorry but I don’t think I know yo-”

“My name is Suzuna, Jongin’s younger sister…I’m very sorry to intrude.”

_Oh._ Kimiko has no idea how to react to that. No wonder she looks familiar. She’s as beautiful as he is, all slender and delicate, in the same impossible way. “No please, come in.” She says quickly, something about the girl makes her want to be very formal and dignified even though she’s probably about four or five years younger, “And your…friends?” Kimiko gestures awkwardly at the men around her, they look back impassively.

“They won’t stay,” she says, “they are leaving now.” The men stare at Kimiko some more, and then eye Kyungsoo for a bit before bowing to Suzuna and leaving.

“What’s wrong?” Kyungsoo asks her, taking her gently by the arm and trying to make it look as inconspicuous as possible, which only makes it appear more so to Kimiko. She can sense that there’s something wrong, something big.

“Let’s go up to my room.” Kimiko says.

***

 

She throws the knife on the table in front of me, a piece of silk cloth already waiting. When I take the knife in my hands, the others in the room gather like vultures around a rotting corpse. Some are wearing sympathetic expressions and others are shaking in anticipation of what is to come. If it’s a show they want, they are sure to get one.

I take a deep breath and put my left hand flat on the wooden surface, my other hand is steady as I place the edge of the Tanto on the first joint of my little finger. I don’t give myself any time to think about it and press down swiftly and forcefully, the knife passing through skin, then muscle, then bone and then the same way backwards till my finger tip lay separated.

I take it in my right hand and wrap it in the cloth, offering it to the Oyabun, head bowed in a gesture of apology and respect. The room is in total silence, all waiting with bated breath for the Oyabun’s reaction. And when she laughs harsh and cruel, it’s like the crack of a whip.

“Do you think that that will suffice?” She asks and sits on the couch opposite me with her legs crossed, “Don’t be silly Kai, you will continue till I tell you to stop.”

The pain, the anger, the dismay, they all threaten to spill through the cast iron doors of the place I keep them in, the door that has several cracks on it already. But I push it down with all I have till it settles, still roiling, but tamed back into its cage. I take the knife again to chop off the second joint in a crunch of bone.

The Oyabun takes out another cigarette, someone lights it for her, and she settles back in her seat. I find myself hesitating at the next one. What if she doesn’t tell me to stop? Would I lose all of them? Will I pass out from the pain or from the blood loss?

The bullet wound in my gut has mysteriously stopped hurting, that can’t be good.

“Faster!”

And so go the whole of my little finger and the first joint of the ring finger, then the second, and then the third from the knuckle. My hands finally start shaking.

The knife and the Oyabun blur before my eyes. Then when I place the on the next one, she thankfully says…

“Enough.” And gestures with her hand for me to bring them to her. I wrap the pieces in the cloth again and hold it out to her with both hands. She grabs hold of my wrist and takes the cloth from me to toss it aside, her nails dig into my wrist. She is still furious, the anger still not assuaged by my yubitsume.

There is more to come.

“I’m punishing you,” she says, and presses her cigarette where my finger used to be, twists it into the flesh, it hisses against fresh blood, I inhale a sharp gasp of air, as a spasm of pain rips its way through me, “Tell me why…”

***

No words are spoken between the three till they are inside Kimiko’s small bedroom. Suzuna stands with her hands clasped in front of her, avoiding eye contact with either of them. Kimiko doesn’t know if she should leave, she doesn’t know if she is allowed to listen to this, like everything else that involved Jongin and Kyungsoo, she has no clue how to handle it or even what to make of it.

“I will get you something to drink.” She says then, and places a hand on the girl’s shoulder, its trembling. She looks to Kyungsoo for answers, but his eyes are focused solely on Suzuna, and he looks out of his mind with worry.

“Is water fine? Please sit down.” Kimiko says, the girl nods, and sits on the chair by the window. The way Kyungsoo and the girl are turned to each other, looking hesitant to speak, she realizes they want privacy, and decides to leave.

The guy from the editor’s office is in the kitchen when she gets there. Kimiko ignores whatever he says, and the guy goes away, shrugging when she doesn’t answer. She fills a clean glass with cool water. What should she do? It obviously was too early to go back, Oh, why couldn’t Kyungsoo tell her something!? She downs the glass of water herself.

The Kimono…those men. She is sure that one of them had a Katana. It reminded her of five years ago, the mysterious family Jongin belonged to. No, it was not mysterious…she knows who they are, she had found out. Her knees waver a little, so she steadies herself using a chair nearby.

Yakuza in her home, in her bedroom.

It had been terrifying to find that out. But eventually, she had pushed it to the back of her mind, and it had somehow disappeared from her immediate thoughts. She had tried for a whole week to speak to Kyungsoo about it, but something always stopped her. As if saying it out loud would give her the confirmation she didn’t want to hear. He knew, that was certain, and for some reason he never brought it up. Kimiko had taken that to mean that the topic was off limits and complied with his silent request.

But then what about now? Had something happened? Did Jongin not inform Kyungsoo that his sister would be coming here? He looked as shocked as she felt, _why?_

She filled the glass again, and headed for her room, she would just give them the water and leave. If Kyungsoo wants her to stay, or know, or help, then he would tell her.

When the door opens, Suzuna is crying,  _bitterly,_ her head buried in Kyungsoo’s chest. He looks at Kimiko, rubbing her back, and shakes his head. He doesn’t know what’s wrong. The way he held her, it was with such a sense of familiarity, he never did that with Kimiko, and they had known each other for seven years… _the girl is in trouble! Stop being so petty, he isn’t your boyfriend!_

“I’m sorry,” Suzuna says, when she notices Kimiko, wiping her tears and trying to regain her composure, “You were having a party, I shouldn’t have come.” So young, and so, so pretty.

“No, not at all, please. You are welcome to stay as long as you like.” What is she doing inviting a Yakuza to live in her house? “Here, drink this.”

“Thank you.” Suzuna takes a small sip, Kimiko feels like telling her to finish the whole glass, “Have you heard from my brother?” she asks Kyungsoo.

“No,” he says, the worry intensifying on his face and in his voice, “I haven’t spoken to him in around two weeks. Why? Has something happened?”

“ _Oh_ …” Suzuna breathes out, her shoulders sag like the hope she was holding on to left her, and her eyes fill up again, the tears spilling and falling over gold cheeks. She brings her hand up to her face, trying to stop herself from crying and drops all the water in her glass in the process, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“It’s alright,” Kyungsoo takes the glass from her, and both he and Kimiko notice that her arms have cuts all over, “Suzuna,” he says, more seriously than he ever said anything before, “Tell me, where is he?”

“I saw him yesterday morning…then some things happened.” She looks apprehensively at Kimiko, it was sensitive information, she turns to leave, but Kyungsoo holds her by the wrist.

“She can help,” he says, and Kimiko is about to tell him it’s okay, but he squeezes her wrist, “You can trust her.” The words fill her chest and warm her heart, he trusts her _, he trusts her_ …

“It’s a long story, and I can’t explain all the details,” Suzuna says, pushing the hair that had come loose, away from her eyes, “but Ni-San is in trouble. I take it you haven’t heard of the split then, of our clan?”

Kyungsoo shrugs, he had been busy the past week and blocked out the external world like he was won’t to do, but Kimiko nods, “I read about it.” She says, looking at Kyungsoo, whose expression grows stonier with every word she utters, “Eiji Shinoda, has separated to form the Okinawa branch of your …ah…of the Yamakichi Gumi, he said there was a betrayal involved.”

Suzuna’s delicate eyebrows knit together, “There was a betrayal alright!” She blurts out, then sighs, as if it was not worth getting into, “Ni-San has been working extensively in South Korea, expanding our operations, it is all his work, what we have achieved there. He was in Seoul until yesterday, sorting out a deal gone bad. He wasn’t supposed to return till Monday…”

A deal? Drugs then. Kimiko resists the urge to express her disgust, Jongin was Yakuza, and Kyungsoo associated with him. Yes, she knows that abstractly, but now to have it waved in front of her face and shoved down her throat like this …Jongin had reached a new low in her mind.

“Eiji Shinoda is a bad man, even by our standards,” Suzuna smiles, it shows she expects and accepts our judgment, “mostly because Ni-San’s adoptive father enabled all his despicable behavior. So, this time when he asked for yet another ridiculous thing,  Masahiro San could not say no.”

The way she said those words, the slight flinching of her body and the revulsion that etched her features spoke volumes about what the ‘ridiculous thing’ might be. Kimiko squeezes Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“I was only asked to look my best, because people were visiting. He even sent the Oyabun’s personal groomers. I should have known…” She grabs fistfuls of the red fabric as if she wants to rip it off her body, “I was helpless to stop the-the  _things_  that followed…I…there were too many, I tried…I tried! I’m not weak, I-” tears well up and fall in rivers, and Suzuna can barely speak through fits of sobs, “ _I fought_ ,  _I fought_ , but…”and Kimiko holds the girl’s head to her stomach, “I feel so… _filthy!_ ” No words could ease her pain, so Kimiko wouldn’t say anything, she wouldn’t pretend to know what it felt like, she would only offer as much comfort as she could. Poor thing, she was no older than sixteen. Heathens…

“What happened to Jongin?” Kyungsoo asks, and it cuts through Suzuna’s sobs, causing her to stop abruptly. His voice does not hold any measure of care or sympathy, one look at his eyes shows he did not feel those things in his heart either, his only concern is Jongin. “Where is he!?”

Anger rises in Kimiko’s chest quick and acidic, how can be so callous? Does he not know that Jongin would undoubtedly be part of things like this? That  _this_  is what his work consists of? How many girls had he pushed into worlds like this? He was lecherous, from what she remembered of him, how many innocents had he sullied himself?

And now just because it happened to his own, he’s the victim all of a sudden? No, the world did not work like that, not Kimiko’s. He is as despicable and abhorrent as any of the rest of them!

***

“Tell me why!” She growls, the others in the room are beginning to back away, even the ones that were most eager before, seem wary of the Oyabun now. This or worse could happen to them one day after all. She holds her hand out for the lighter, and Suho gives it to her, throwing me an apologetic look.

It blazes to life with a click and few sparks, the Oyabun wastes no time in bringing it to my hand, “I-I murdered-” The words I was so reluctant to say or even admit to myself spew forth through gritted teeth as the flame licks at my wound, I was drenched in her husband’s blood, “Oto-San!”

She clicks it off and throws it where the pieces of my fingers lay, and takes one of the sticks from her hair, “This one is for that,” she says and drives it straight through my hand, it feels like it would go all the way to my wrist.

“And this one…” She does it again, this time through where my ring finger used to be, “…Is for bringing me shame!”

With that she manages to a wrench cry of absolute misery from my throat, and despite my best efforts, my body jerks and strains to pull away, anything to make her let go! Let go! Let go! The shivering intensifies and I struggle to stand my ground. I breathe out shaking my head, it’s impossible to keep the pain from my face, stop, stop please… _I can’t bear it, can’t bear it!_

“The Yamakichi Gumi, the largest clan in the Yakuza, our legacy unsurpassed…” She pushes the thing further into my hand, her hand straining against bone and sinew, “And you tear us apart. Our ancestors will never forgive us.”

“Oka-San!” her words barely register in my brain, where the only thing that exists is  _pain, pain, pain!_  I hadn’t called her that in years, but it has no effect, it never did. She bends the stick to the side, I  _feel_  rather than hear a crack, and another stifled scream rips through my throat.

“Pathetic…”

_One word_ , and I have never felt more useless my whole life. The urge to pull away and yank the sticks out is overwhelming. She presses it in even further and digs her nails into the wounds, all I can do is bow under the unbearable agony as my breath hisses through clenched teeth, but I don’t move, I wouldn’t dare object her authority here.

“Are you listening?”

“Y-Yes.” my voice is barely a whisper now, and it takes all I have to keep it from wavering.

“You have no idea what you set off…” the Oyabun throws my hand away like she is disgusted by the thing, and I hold it close to my chest, careful not to move it. A heavy sigh of relief whooshes out of my lungs, “You will take Masahiro’s place as my second in command. I expect you to begin your duties by tomorrow morning. Arrange a grand funeral, he was your father, adopted or not.” She says, and makes a dismissive gesture with her hand, she was done with me for now.

***

“Suzuna, I need to know where Jongin is.” Kyungsoo says again, clearly losing patience.

“Kyungsoo I-” Kimiko begins, but Suzuna cuts her off.

“I don’t know,” Suzuna says, her head still buried in Kimiko’s stomach, “They were still at it when he returned, all I heard was a commotion, and gun shots, I wasn’t even fully conscious. Ni-San took me out of the house and gave me a note that said I would be safe with you, Kimiko San. He sent two of his Korean men with me and they brought me here. He was really hurt, and I think he was captured, I don’t know where to find him! You have to help me Kyungsoo San, please-”

“We will, Suzuna.” Kimiko says, gritting her teeth, “We will have to.”

“I know where to start,” Kyungsoo says, taking out his phone and sending someone a message, “You stay here with Kimiko, take a shower, she will give you a change of clothes. Try to rest. Your brother is right, you are safe here.”

“Look, are you sure about this?” Kimiko asks, she has every intention to help Suzuna, but she does not want to let Kyungsoo go out on his own, no matter how brave and ballsy he thought he was, “This matter is clearly beyond us. And I don’t know if taking a shower before the cops do a rape kit is a good idea.”

Kyungsoo gives her a withering look, “Just do what you’re told.” He states, leaving no room for argument. That expression always makes him look like someone else entirely, someone cruel, vicious, capable of terrible things. Kimiko doesn’t say anything more, and the strain in their friendship creaks and twitches again.

He holds Kimiko’s gaze for a beat, then his eyes drift to Suzuna, and he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Suddenly, his appearance softens a thousand-fold, almost like he had slipped off a mask, and his eyes shine like the Kyungsoo she knew and loved. He comes up to Suzuna and bends down to kiss her head, the girl was used to the gesture, given that she was comfortable with a male doing that after everything that happened.

“It will be okay. I will find him.” He says. Kimiko feels Suzuna’s head nodding slowly, it was still pressed to her stomach. Kyungsoo then turns to her, and places a palm on her cheek, it’s cold. Kimiko is confused, there is a complicated mess of emotions in those eyes, eyes that she would never be able to fully decipher.

Kyungsoo looks conflicted for a few seconds, then he leans in close, tilting her head slightly, after another momentary pause, he places a gentle, lingering kiss on her lips and it brings all Kimiko’s thoughts to a screeching halt.

She stands there frozen when he pulls away and leaves, her heart a blazing fire storm.

***

 The ceiling has four cracks. The longest one is about four feet in length, and the shortest one is about three inches. The room has one window that is sealed shut, a table and a door that lead to the inside of the house. But unfortunately, it was jarringly bare and had nothing more to offer, so I have nothing else to focus on. Don’t people count in these situations? Counting seems to help them…

_Ichi, nii, saam, saa, yon-_ “ _Fuck!_ ” My whole body curves in on itself in response to Yuki San’s exploration.

“Sorry…” She says in the most apathetic voice I have ever heard, “I can’t help it, it’s in too deep,” She touches it again with the tip of her finger, and my breath catches, I really wish she would stop doing that.

“I don’t have the equipment that you need,” She says, “You knew that, so stop with the fussiness and let me do my job.”

I swallow and try to slow my breathing. It would only be worse if I tensed my body. I need to calm down, there is no other choice, it would have to be her.

“Go ahead.” I say, taking in a deep breath and try once again to count in my mind. But it has other ideas, and decides to register in full _excruciating_  detail, the torturous pain in my hand, and I tear away from Yuki San’s touch again.

She slams her palms on the examination table, “They have pain medication at the hospital.” She grinds out, “Don’t make me do something like this. I don’t enjoy seeing people in pain you know? This isn’t like when you come here banged up by your boyfriend or whoever, you could have serious problems.”

“I don’t want it.” I say, I don’t. “Please carry on, I won’t move again.” This would go into the motivation folder of my brain. I want to feel this, to remember it. It would color the memory of this day in the crimson of pain. What? I like to be dramatic when I hold grudges. “I will make sure you are compensated for your efforts.”

“Well that works out just fine for me then, doesn’t it?” Yuki San sighs, taking my hand again, she pushes a small piece of cloth in my mouth, “Bite down on this. And don’t die on me.”


	5. Simulated Humanity

The day her son was born, Sunmi should have been happy like all mothers are. Her baby was beautiful, bright and healthy, her first born, the joy of her life. But as she held the squealing baby in her hands she felt…no, she  _knew_ , it was not her own, it couldn’t be, someone must have replaced it when it was still inside.

The nurses had asked her what was wrong when she had just held him, slightly far away from her body and just stared, trying to find out what it was about him that was so… _terrifying_. Then her husband had shuffled in with tears in his eyes and taken him into his arms in the flamboyant manner he always did things. Sunmi remembered staring at the scene like she was not there at all, like she hadn’t just birthed him from her body.

The feeling had receded in a few days. When she tried to find the innocence in his smiles and in his wide, sparkling eyes.  _Kyungsoo,_  she had decided to name him. Bright, shining, someone who would soar to new heights. It fit him.

And soar he did, he breezed through everything he ever attempted. Almost like he had done all these things in another life, and just been sent back to earth by mistake. When school started, and Sunmi saw other children his age, the differences between them became so stark she wondered how no one else noticed. Did they not see he was…something else?  Thinking this way filled her with a crushing, suffocating sense of guilt.

“Your son is a genius Sunmi!”

“Kyungsoo is going to become someone great.”

“You must be so proud.”

She should be, anyone else would have been, she is a horrible person. Maybe it comes from having such a gifted child, maybe she was used to the idea that children were innocent and unaware and had to be “mothered”. She was probably disappointed that she did not get to do much of that. That her son was more like a house guest that she cooked for. But isn’t that kind of independence what parents wish for their whole lives? Was she being selfish?

It wasn’t his fault though. It wasn’t. He was just doing his best and just being himself.

When he was around five years old, she began going to work again. The organized world of the hospital helped her feel more centered, more in control. Being a nurse was a stressful job, but she was happy to be distracted, and to be seeing less of her son. She hired a nanny who was a great help. The woman thought that Kyungsoo was the most well-behaved and easy to deal with child he had ever seen. Sunmi was sure that was true.

In all this while, Sunmi’s husband had been completely oblivious to her worries. She thought about telling him about it, to try and get the feelings out of her head, but she failed as many times as she had tried. He was too preoccupied with his job, with his vendetta against the Yakuza. He was useless as his efforts against the Oyabun futile.

Then one day, the day she should not be happy to recall, she found that her worries may not be unfounded after all. She was at her hospital when she got the call from Kyungsoo’s school.  It had taken her forty minutes and three near car accidents to get to there.

When she ran up the stairs to the principal’s office and saw Kyungsoo sitting on the bench all alone, and utterly, completely, calm. She had not been relieved, no, instead, the scene had filled her with such a frightening sense of foreboding that he had done something horrible, an unshakable sense of fear that something awful must have happened to the other child.

She grabbed him by the shoulder and walked them into the Principal’s office as quickly as possible, trying not to let her emotions show. Kyungsoo walked along, barely displaying any hint of remorse or fear.

“Ah Do San, you are here.” The principal says, in front of her there is a woman. Sunmi cannot see her face, but there is a child sitting in her lap, the small hands holding on to her shoulders, the only indication.

Sunmi bows, the Principal gestures for her to sit down and her eyes drag towards the child in the other woman’s arms. He has his head buried in her chest, the woman is staring at Kyungsoo with a ferociousness only a mother is capable of.

“What exactly happened here?” She asks, her eyes lingering on the mother.

“Well, we don’t exactly know the details Sunmi San, neither child is talking. But Only Ide-San’s son seems to have any evident physical harm.”

“Look at him!” The mother hisses, “look what your son did.” She pulls the child away from her body to show Sunmi his face and she gasps at what she sees. The poor boy is unrecognizable, his whole face red and bruised, one eye is closed shut from the swelling, his nose probably broken, and stuffed with tissue paper to staunch the bleeding. He also has several broken teeth.

“Oh my god…” she breathes, hand on her chest, her mind is reeling. She had expected worse, she just realizes. The poor child though…he still looks terrified. Sunmi could probably use this as justification to get Kyungsoo evaluated by a child psychologist. At last now she has a reason to give her husband, “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to say…”

“Don’t say anything.” The other woman says, “I’m holding the school responsible for allowing this to happen. I expect you to make up for this, principal.”

“Of course, of course!” The Principal says, probably afraid of ruining his school’s reputation. It was one of the most prestigious ones in the city, and such an incident was exactly the kind of thing that brought those institutions to the ground, “Please, we will make-”

“No,” Sunmi intervenes; she somehow feels personally responsible for what had occurred, “I will take care of the medical fee, and also his whole year’s tuition fee.” She says, watching the other woman’s expression turn slowly from irritated rage to rueful sympathy.

“Sunmi San…” She begins, looking at Kyungsoo for a while before continuing, “Your son is the smartest child I have ever seen, and such a well-behaved boy, I don’t blame him for anything that has happened. Maybe my son did something to provoke him, I don’t know…in any case, please don’t feel guilty.” She says, and stands up with the boy in her arms, “Excuse me.”

The Principal’s shoulder’s sag as she leaves, he too looks at Kyungsoo then, “Kyungsoo-kun, could you please tell me what happened?” He says, his tone is still patient, like he is talking to an innocent child that had gotten unwittingly caught up in someone else’s mess, “Who was the other boy who was with you?”

“The other boy?” There was another child involved?

“Yes, this one was not wearing our uniform, so he must be some random child from the neighborhood, he somehow got on to the playground. Only Kyungsoo saw him, the other child did not tell us anything about this other boy.”

And again, the wrenching feeling of guilt twists in her gut, she had immediately thought the worst of her son, assumed it was he who was the culprit without even asking him how he was, or what had happened. She placed a protective arm around his shoulder, “Kyungsoo, did the other boy do this?” She asked him softly, and he peered up at her with wide, beautiful eyes.

“I don’t remember…” he said in a small voice, “I’m sorry Omma, I didn’t mean to forget…I’m sorry.”

Sunmi hugged him then, for the first time seeing vulnerability and confusion in her son’s always aware, always sharp face. It somehow broke through her anxiety and touched  a warm, protective place in her heart, “That’s okay Soo, we can talk about it later at home okay?”

“Sunmi Sama!” a young man comes running inside the office, he is being held back quite ineffectively by the receptionist, “Is he okay? Is Kyungsoo-Kun okay?”

It’s their nanny, “Ah Takeshi?”

“I asked him to come because he spends more time with the child than either of you.” explains the Principal, Sunmi nods in understanding and Takeshi comes in. The Principal asks the receptionist to take Kyungsoo outside, so he could speak to them alone.

As the boy is taken away, the tension in the room increases a thousand fold, and fear ignites anew in Sunmi’s heart. Even the young Takeshi looks troubled.

“Oi don’t look so worried, these are just some routine questions I’m supposed to ask when a child is involved in something like this. It just a precautionary measure. Remember, we are not your enemies, we want what’s best for your child as well.” He says, and takes out a small notepad and pen, “So then, let’s begin!

“First question, for how long is the child by himself?”

“Hardly ever,” Takeshi says, “I’m at home when he gets back from school, and his parents are with him from when they return. So, there’s always someone supervising him.”

“Then, does he exhibit any behaviors that you would consider autistic?”

“Why?” Sunmi asks, “He isn’t autistic. I’m a nurse, I would know if he was.” She had never considered that a possibility, Kyungsoo could be very sociable when he wanted to be, it’s just that he preferred his own company to that of others, “He’s a little bit of an introvert, that’s all.”

“I see, and has he ever been witness to any kind of violence at home, or otherwise?” The Principal does not lift his gaze from the notepad he was scribbling in, if he had, he would see the utter outrage and incredulousness on Sunmi’s face.

“Of course not!” She says, this line of questioning! Was there a reason he was asking them these things? Had there been another similar event? “What exactly are you trying to ascertain here?”

“It’s just routine questions to make sure that your son is not subject to a hostile environment at home. Where he would be under the impression that violence was okay. Are there any problems in your marriage? Any talks of divorce or a fight between you two?”

“We have a happy household, and our son is in a caring and warm environment where all his needs are met to the fullest. That should answer all your ridiculous questions Principal!” Sunmi hisses, she was being unreasonably upset, but she did not care at the moment. What he is insinuating is ridiculous, she’s a nurse and her husband a Police officer. She couldn’t imagine a safer environment than that for a child. And he knew all this, Sunmi and her husband were active members of the Parent Teacher committee and attended all their son’s many events and competitions to cheer him on. They ensured they were part of his life, even more so because of her feelings of guilt.

“You see Sunmi,” the Principal takes off his glasses and wiped them with his hand Kerchief, “I don’t know how to put this, but…you saw the other child’s face. That was no accident, there was some real malice behind those blows and what your son says, about this…this other boy from some other school who no one else seems to have seen are all quite,  _worrying_.” He says, putting the glasses back on.

“But he is an exceptional student who never caused problems so far, and all for this one incident, you question Sunmi Sama like this?” Takeshi asks, “Isn’t that a little unfair?”

“Well that’s just the thing Takeshi-Kun, the rarity of such an episode is to be the most worrying thing about this whole incident.” The Principal sighs, “You see, there are some kids who are notorious from the get-go. They are crazy and run on walls and ceilings and hit others and…” he gestures elaborately, waving his arms about, “…you get the idea. But then there is Kyungsoo. When a child like him does something of this nature, it usually points to him unleashing what would have built up for a while. In such cases it’s important that we ensure there is no growing or building unrest, and that this really was an isolated event.”

“I assure you that Kyungsoo would never do something like that.” Takeshi says, “I’m an unbiased observer, I don’t have anything to gain from lying or being defensive. So trust me Principal, Kyungsoo is a gem of a child.”

As they leave the office, the Principal’s words echo in Sunmi’s ears like the whispering of some spiteful ghost. What worried her more was not the part of her mind that dreaded what he said would be true, but the part that reveled in the possibility that her concerns were well founded and not seeped in paranoia and selfishness.

She was driving Takeshi back to the house after taking Kyungsoo back to his classroom. The young man asks her to park the car suddenly. She does and waits for the flustered college student to say what he was clearly terrified of saying.

“Umm…Sunmi Sama, there is actually something I wanted to tell you about Kyungsoo-kun.” He says, looking down at his lap, “It happened around a month ago, and I didn’t think of telling you because you would fire me, but in light of current happenings, I think it’s more important that you know.”

“What is it?” Sunmi asks, ‘Spit it out Takeshi, I have had enough suspense for a lifetime today.”

“There was this girl that used to play with Kyungsoo in the summer break. Do you remember her?”

“Yes, she was a sweet child.” Sunmi recalls the girl picking flowers for her.

“Well one day, she and Kyungsoo had a fight about who won some game they were playing. And, when she insisted that Kyungsoo-kun lost and then made fun of him, in a very childish way, and playful way I might add. They didn’t speak to each other after that. They left three days later, because she was swarmed by wasps.”

“She must have disturbed them, there is a big nest between our houses.”

“Well, she claimed that Kyungsoo-kun dared her to throw a rock at the nest. And this was right after you had told him what would happen if he did that, we had all watched a wasp attack on TV.”

Sunmi starts the car again and, pulls on to the road, “What are you trying to say, Takeshi?”

“It could be that he did not know the consequences of his actions, or how severe the bites could be.” The nanny offers, “Or that, he needs to vent his anger in a healthier way, perhaps martial arts?”

“Perhaps…” Sunmi says, “Perhaps.”

***

Kyungsoo changes out of his suit and dress shirt in the back of the cab he was travelling in. It wouldn’t do to stand out like a nun at a death metal concert. He folds them neatly and leaves them on the seat. It’s sad to see the suit go, a Tom Ford beauty that fit him like a dream, a very expensive, exquisitely crafted, high thread count dream. But,  _priorities_ …

When the car stops in front of an old house that to most people would look haunted, he hears the suit almost cry out for him,  _damn it_.

As the car pulls away, and Kyungsoo runs to the door, he has the suit tucked neatly in the crook of his arm. He had to ring the bell a total of eleven times before the temperamental former doctor opened the door, marking the wood with blood-soaked gloves.

“…Yes?”

“Ah…its Do Kyungsoo, you called me.”

“You’re too late.”

“ _What?_ ”

“...Late.”

Kyungsoo stares at her.

He stares back.

Kyungsoo blinks at her.

She raises an eyebrow.

Kyungsoo takes two steps back. A breeze blows through, bringing dry leaves with it, and the wind chimes tinkle softly in the quiet night. “So he’s…”

“Dead?”

“Dead.”

The wood beneath his feet creaks as he sways slightly. His vision swims and the suit slips slowly down to the ground to get crushed under his shoes as he charges forward, pushing the woman out of the way. Dead.  _Dead…_

The examination room he crashes into reeks of rust and blood, metallic and foul, he had never had the misfortune of seeing in such quantity. In the middle of it all, above a pile of discarded, torn and bloodied clothes, on a narrow metallic bed is a lonely, pale, almost entirely red and white body.

Kyungsoo is beside him in an instant, his hand a hair’s breadth away from the body’s face. He is afraid of touching him, as if…as if he would defile him somehow. He withdraws his hand from the blood streaked face, and his eyes search fervently for any signs of life in the lines of the body, the body he is more familiar with than his own. What he finds is one, four, no  _five_ bullet wounds _,_   _and oh my god his hand…_

Oh, how irrelevant his own problems seem now. How petty had he been? Wasting his time with that idiotic woman _. Did you suffer Jongin? While I was so oblivious to it, no, you can’t be dead, you can’t be, you’re too damn stubborn for that…_

Kyungsoo holds the cold face of the only person who ever knew him, and presses his forehead against his, eyes closed tight and stinging, his entire body shivering with the force of realization, the grief. Unbeknown to him, a sob escapes his teeth as his hands fist in tangled black hair, “I’m sorry,” he whispers as his lips brush against bruised ones almost reverently, and he freezes.

He could have imagined it. Does he dare to hope? His fingers bury themselves in Jongin’s neck, he waits, and waits and…it’s there. A pulse, faint and slow, but it’s there, his heart his still beating! He’s alive.

“Well, that was interesting.”

Kyungsoo’s head whips toward the staircase where the Doctor is standing.

“What the fuck kind of Doctor are you? He’s alive!” He growls, “We must get him to the hospital! Do you not know how to check for a pulse you  _fucktard_?”

“Huh,” The Doctor is unimpressed with his tirade, she casually leans against the railing of the staircase, “I knew he was alive.”

Kyungsoo’s brain refuses to process that for a moment, “What?”

“I knew he was alive, I just wanted to know if you gave a shit about him or not.” She shrugs, “Now I know, and so do you.”

He stares at her like she’s out of her mind. Maybe she is. What is he doing talking to a crazy person? Take a deep breath Kyungsoo, get your head on straight. Planning calms you down, so do that. Plan how you are going to get Jongin away from here.

“I have stabilized him, and tried my best to tend to his wounds, but then he passed out from the pain. I can’t take him to a hospital, they’ll know I tried to…I can’t be seen being all mediciney without my license.” The Doctor says, coming to stand on the other side of the table.

“I see,” Kyungsoo says, smoothing his hair and clothes back down, composing himself. He feels his face take on its usual expression of polite disinterest, sealing away all emotion, all traces of any vulnerability he might have felt or showed. Even his own disapproval of his careless emotional display, disappears like it had never been there at all, “That’s where I come in.”

“Precisely.”

 


	6. Your Crazy's Showing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Jongin and Kyungsoo's birthday!!

“And you want me to believe that these injuries are a result of an attempted mugging?”

“Yes.” Kyungsoo says, without blinking. The doctor helplessly turns to Sunmi who was standing behind him. His old face all too aware that such injuries were too distinctive to be from anything else.

“I heard there is a group of troublemakers who go around mimicking the Yakuza so that the police leave them alone.”  Sunmi says, “Kids these days… Good thing Aki was passing by or else who knows what could have happened.”

That’s what Kyungsoo had told her.

“Who took out all the bullets then? Why didn’t your son bring him to the hospital immediately? And why do I get stuck in situations like this?” The doctor scratches his head, and sighs, “Sunmi, I don’t want to know, okay? But whatever happens is on you, you got that? You seem to trust this kid, and to be honest, he looks like he has been through a lot, so I’ll help but I wat no part in this if it gies haywire. Let’s get an X-Ray of the hand, for now.”

“Arigatou Sensei!” Sunmi bows.

The Doctor still looks somehow uneasy, and despite his words to the contrary, extremely judgmental. But their purposes were met, so Kyungsoo doesn’t bother. His mother was the only one who could have helped him at a time like this. He doesn’t know how she isn’t asking him any questions, but he wasn’t going to volunteer any answers if she didn’t want to know.

“I have patients to attend to, I’ll come check on you two later okay?” Sunmi smiles, “Take care of him.”

Kyungsoo nods, as he seats himself on the chair next to the bed, grateful that she left. He desperately needed time to figure things out. He was tired, oh so tired today, the night felt like it was endless. The only thing that would calm him down even slightly now, would be seeing Jongin opening his eyes again. And he hated that he felt that way,  _hated it_.

But why were these feelings there? Weren’t they supposed to be tearing each other apart? Or was this an excruciating way of doing just that?

The moron, killing Masahiro like that, how did he let his emotions get the better of him? It was hard to imagine how he would be able to turn that situation around. But by ending Masahiro’s life, he had successfully helped Kyungsoo’s agenda. The victory tastes bitter.

Jongin looks so fragile, like one nudge would shatter those ridiculously delicate features to pieces. But he isn’t. He’s stronger than anyone Kyungsoo has ever known. He wants to hold him, to trap him in his arms and never let him go. The tremor in his hands had still not stopped.

“Kssah…”

Kyungsoo fists his hand hard enough that his nails cut into his palm. What is wrong with him? Had he developed… _feelings_ for him _?_  No, it was just the shock of him dying that had shaken him up so much. Yes, that’s it. His brain is just overreacting, that’s all. It would take time for the information that he isn’t dead to sink in.

Kyungsoo sighs and runs his hand through his hair. He should probably tell Suzuna her brother is fine.

“-ind him? Tell me you did!” The girl had begun speaking even before bringing the phone to her ear.

“Yes, he’s injured, but he’ll live. I’ve brought him to my mother’s hospital.”

“Thank god!” Suzuna cries, “Thank you Kyungsoo-Kun, thank you so much!”

“That’s alright Suzuna. I’ll talk to you later. Oyasumi.”

He could hear Kimiko in the background as he hung up, asking Suzuna if he wanted to speak to her.

_Right_ , Kimiko. Kyungsoo groans as he recalls what he had done. He couldn’t talk to her yet. Not until he figured out how he would fix it. He rests his head on the cold metal of the bed rail, and the smell of sterile sheets and Jongin invade his mind.

The kiss, he had been thinking of doing that for a long time now. He wanted it to be done at the right moment. But this had been too hasty, and under completely wrong circumstances. With one action he had started their relationship at an impossibly high degree of seriousness. That had not been his intention at all. But there was no choice but to go along with it now. Turning back was not an option, anyone else would take more work and patience than Kyungsoo had to spare.

“Ora Ora…Kyungsoo-Kun?”

Kyungsoo let the sheer disarming relief he felt at hearing that semiconscious voice, disappear from his face before he lifts it to look at Jongin. He sees the gold skinned idiot sit up gingerly. Then he grabs the mangled hand next to him and squeezes. Jongin gasps in anticipation of the pain and tenses up on the bed, only to relax again at the lack of it.

“Oh! Morphine is a wonderful thing, isn’t it Kyungsoo-Kun?” He dissolves into laughter then, the high pitched, slightly crazed kind that Kyungsoo found incredibly unsettling. He lets the hand go, and leans back in his chair, sure that he is wearing his most condescending expression.

“I’m leaving.” He says then, and stands up, “The hospital will take care of the rest.”

“Already?” Jongin’s laughter abruptly stops, and he looks over Kyungsoo’s shoulder as if he saw someone there. He did that a lot these days, Kyungsoo had chosen to ignore it mostly, and he resists the urge to turn and look now. He wondered what it was he sees, and if it is terrifying. “But you were just being so cute, waiting by the beside all worried and what not.”

How is it that he gets on his nerves even when he is nearly dead? Kyungsoo refuses to give him a reaction. “Suzuna is in Kimiko’s house. She got there safely.”

“I know. I ensured that.” Jongin says, his face losing its playful glint, it takes on an uncharacteristic sullenness, “Even if I couldn’t protect her when she needed it most…”

A good friend, _no_ , a good person, a decent stranger even, would have asked if he was alright, would have asked if he wanted to talk about what happened, if there was any way he could help, would have insisted they stayed over and looked after them. But Kyungsoo was none of those, so…

“See ya.” He says, and leaves.

***

As he walked on the street outside the hospital, trying to clear his head, Kyungsoo couldn’t decide if he should go back home or to Kimiko’s place. He doesn’t really want to face her tonight, but not meeting her would bring them into awkward territory at superluminal speed. That is to be avoided at all costs. But the only thing that battled for focus in his mind now was the fact that the Yamakichi Gumi had split up into two parts.

It would make interaction with Jongin rather difficult from here on. That damn Shinoda should have thought this through instead of listening to his ephebophilic dick. But the damage was done, and the only thing left to do was try and make the best of this situation, which was rather difficult now that he had to deal with two groups who would work separately instead of one. Still, it was for the better ultimately, the split would shake a few things loose.

He wondered what Jongin’s next move would be. He had killed his father in a state of heightened emotion, but what did the Oyabun think of that? Did she care about her dead husband? Most likely not, but that might not be the case with the other Yakuza minions. They may still hold some sort of respect for the dead man. Did that put Jongin in a negative situation with the clan? Looking at the lack of people who had come to his aid, it probably does. Then again, it could only be due to the Oyabun’s orders that they did not show up, he couldn’t say for sure.

Kyungsoo would have to speak to his father about this. He needed this information. He took out his cell phone to call him.

“Do San.”

The voice startles him so badly he drops his phone. He whips around to see who it is and sees a woman with a blood splattered lab coat standing under a flickering street light. She looks like something that crawled out of a slasher movie. It’s the former Doctor from the house earlier.

“Do you really think you should be walking around like that?” He asks her, picking his phone up.

“Like what?” She looks at herself, seeming to realize what she was wearing, “Ah, I forget that I’ve got this on sometimes.” She says, and takes it off, under the coat was an extremely see through, wispy black scrap of cloth that could be called a shirt, kind of. She walks over and just stands there looking at him for a few minutes. Not saying a word.

“…Okay, I’m leaving now.” Kyungsoo says and turns to continue walking. There are too many weirdos in his life.

“You really care about how you look, don’t you?” She says, falling into step with him.

“I don’t like being covered in blood.” He increases his pace, hoping that her much shorter legs couldn’t keep up. But they could, very easily, she’s very fast for a middle-aged woman.  _Damn it._  She grabs his arm then, stopping him. “What?”

She stands on her tiptoes, brings her face to his neck in a fraction, and  _sniffs_ him.

“What are you doing?” Kyungsoo pushes her back by her shoulders forcefully, being as respectful as possible, and she smiles.

“You use expensive perfume. The suit you dropped at my door step was very expensive too, your haircut looks like it costs more than my rent, you skin is spotless, shoes are patent leather, and even your nails look unnaturally well kept.”

“So, what? Get away from me.”

“But you are naturally good looking, and from what I have heard, of above average intelligence. So now the question is, what are you compensating for?”

Kyungsoo hails that cab that’s approaching them, and gets inside it as quickly as possible, already convinced of this woman’s insanity. But the woman enters it from the other side. He gets back out and closes the door, hoping that another one would pass by, but the street is irritatingly empty.

“You are confident, don’t get me wrong,” she says, getting out of the car as it began to drive away, “But your appearance is too intentional and carefully planned, as if you want to hide something about yourself from the world, you feel guilty about something, don’t you?” Kyungsoo tries to stop the cab again but the driver just speeds up and leaves him behind.

“I paid him to not give you a ride,” the woman comes to stand in front of him again, “I just want to talk to you Do San, won’t you oblige a lady?”

“About what?” Kyungsoo hisses, “I  _just_ met you.”

“Let’s introduce ourselves then, shall we?” She stands straight and then bows, her grey-black hair flying, “My name is Shiina Yuki, former psychiatrist, currently manager of a nightclub and part time Doctor to Yamakichi Kai. Yoroshiku.”

Kyungsoo really needs to get away from this person but running seems like such a cowardly thing to do. He refused to be reduced to that. Besides, he has a feeling that she would somehow catch him if he runs anyway. He needs to control this situation and get the upper hand somehow.

“Do Kyungsoo, Lawyer, fresh out of college. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” He sighs, he would have to dictate how this conversation would take place if he wanted to leave here alive, “Fine then, let’s go eat something while we talk.” He walks across the street to a Sushiya, and she follows.

“One Half beak ark shell, and warm Sake Onegaishimas, and keep bringing refills, we will be here a while.” The former Doctor orders immediately. Kyungsoo only orders a Miso soup. He is leaving as soon as he finished it.

“Why is a former psychiatrist treating bullet wounds?” He begins, not letting her initiate anything. He was the master of getting information out of others without ever revealing a shred about himself, it made him an excellent lawyer. But he felt this one would be rather different.

“Because I can.” She says, “Medicine is not terribly difficult Kyungsoo-Kun, even the best Doctors know only half of what they ought to, that’s why they so damn dramatic about everything. All that cutting, sewing and prescribing gets boring after a while you know, all bodies are essentially the same. But  _minds_ , now minds are a whole other ball game. No two minds are ever truly alike, are they? That’s the beauty of it, the beauty of psychiatry.”

“Can’t enjoy the beauty now that you don’t have a license, can you?” He says, as the waiter brings her Sushi and Sake.

“Only the law says that Kyungsoo-Kun.” She eats one and he has to wait till she is finished chewing for her to continue, “No one can stop me from studying people. In fact, I have been studying Kai-Kun from the last few years, he doesn’t know about it, or he doesn’t care either way. But I keep it that way because I feel like a specimen must be observed in its natural state for us to fully comprehend it. You can’t put a predator on a couch and expect to learn all about it, can you? No, you must observe it in the wild, where it’s running, and killing and being its glorious, vicious self. The setup used by psychiatrists today is very flawed in my opinion.”

“Is it because he sees thing?” Kyungsoo asks, before he can catch himself, and immediately regrets it when her expression changes. She hadn’t been privy to that information, apparently. Shit.

“He sees things? What does he see? Oh, this explains so much…Full of surprises that one.” She nods, Kyungsoo could almost see the pieces of some strange incomprehensible jigsaw puzzle fall into place in her head, “Under what circumstances does he see things? Did he tell you about it?”

“He just looks off into the distance sometimes, almost like someone’s there. It may be nothing.” Where is his Miso soup?

Shiina takes another bite and ponders over something, “Hmmm, do you want to know why I lost my license Kyungsoo-Kun?”

_No_. “Sure, why not?”

“I have a different view on mental illness, you see. None of my peers could agree with it. I don’t think mental illness is something to be medicated. I think it’s beautiful, like fireworks in their minds. It should be allowed to run its full course, we should let it blossom and study what happens to them while they are undergoing this transformation, while they are being… _more than human_. That is why diseases of the mind are so misunderstood, people are too busy suppressing them to know what really happens. I was able to publish some very excellent scientific papers based on my observations of them. Yes, several of my patients died, and some even killed others. But then people still give precedence to meaningless emotions over scientific progress. And that is worth the ten-year prison sentence, don’t do you think?”

“Playing with the lives of the people who trusted you to help them is not something I agree with, Yuki-San.” He says, Kyungsoo hadn’t given the human mind any further thought than how to manipulate it, but what she said was fascinating, highly unethical, but still interesting. He would have to look for her papers.

“Do you ever mean anything you say?” she asks him, laughing, “Don’t answer that, I know how your kind thinks anyway. Anyone who doesn’t agree with you is stupid. But if that person happens to have even a shred of similarity to you, they must be fascinating. You’re in love with yourselves, like how you’re in love with Kai-Kun.”

“You’re mistaken, Yuki-San.” Kyungsoo says firmly, as the waiter finally brings him his bowl of Miso.

“Ahhh…” Her eyes brighten in an eerie way, “Just friends then?”

“If you could call it that.”

“Do you like hurting him?” She whispers, “Does it  _feel gooood_?” The waiter throws her a strange glance.

Kyungsoo’s spoon stops halfway to his mouth, he doesn’t look up from his bowl, and something cold runs its fingers along his spine, “…Excuse me?”

“You hurt him, you have been, for some time.”  She gives the waiter a saccharine smile, “That will be all sweetheart.”

_…Flushed cheeks and hitched breaths, and the taste of his skin…_

The soup looks unappetizing now, and Kyungsoo pushes it away. This would hopefully serve as a nonverbal cue to her that he found this topic abhorrent. But even so, just how much had Jongin been telling her? And his injuries were not so severe that they would require medical attention…were they?  _No, of course they weren’t_. He’s a criminal anyhow, so if the injuries were serious then he deserves them anyway. But no, no he never gave indications of it being painful. He clearly liked it as much as Kyungsoo did.

“You don’t remember? The scratches here, the bite-”

“I would  _never_  hurt him.” He grits out.

“Really? The number of times he has been on my table would point to the contrary. But he’s the perfect candidate for that kind of abusive relationship, isn’t he?” She says, sighing dreamily.

“ _Abusive?_ ”

She ignores his outrage and continues in the same half swooning way, “He would never admit he’s hurt, never hold anyone but himself responsible for what is being done to him, would rarely complain. So, you feel justified in your actions, _‘He must enjoy it’_ , you tell yourself, _‘I’m just giving him what he wants, he deserves it.’_ And most important reason of all, crazy people make for great sex.”

Kyungsoo almost lets the surprise he feels show on his face before he replaces it with righteous revulsion, “How can you say such a thing? Nobody deserves that kind of treatment!” He says with the appropriate amount of horror, “And why are you investigating him anyway? Is there something wrong with him?”

“I can’t tell you that, it may compromise the observations. But I must let you know, he has been killing people almost as long as he’s been fucking them. His first kill was at  _age fourteen_. Nobody can stay a hundred percent sane after that. If he is a sociopath, he has managed to masquerade as one of the masses, one of the humans very easily. It’s a possibility, he has a very high intellectual capacity, just like you. The chances of two sociopaths meeting are so slim, and yet here you two are, in mutual admiration of each other.”

“Did you just call me a Sociopath, Yuki-San?”

Kyungsoo’s brain is telling him to make a sympathetic expression, show some remorse it says, that’s what a concerned friend would have on their face right now, you just learned that someone you supposedly care about had a terrible childhood… But his natural, true face, that was usually devoid of anything resembling emotional expression refused to budge.

“Yes, and a Malignant Narcissist.”

That’s it. Kyungsoo is done with this ridiculous conversation. He is leaving.

“But do you see Kyungsoo-Kun? I just told you your boyfriend murdered someone when he was merely a child, and the only information you pick up is what was said about yourself.”

“What do you want from me lady?” Kyungsoo nearly snaps at her, “I have had a long, long day and I don’t need to hear this crap, alright?”

“I just want to  _observe_  you, my pretty.” She reaches across the table and holds Kyungsoo’s face in her hands, “Both of you are just magnificent,” She breathes, “I just wanted to talk to you. And maybe give you a slight nudge here and there and see how the experiment goes.”

“Go fuck yourself, Yuki-San.”

“Goodbye darling!”


	7. Two Murders and One funeral

It was three days later that one of the largest funerals the people of Tokyo had ever seen happened. I would know, because I am the one who organized it. It may seem a little strange to you that I would do such a thing for the man I killed. But being second in command to the Okinawa section of the Yamakichi Gumi, such things fall directly under my jurisdiction, and I like to please.

See, the thing is, this funeral isn’t about the dead guy at all. No, this whole event is about making an impression. It’s about blocking the street with a funeral procession, about letting the press know it’s happening while pretending its confidential, and most of all, it’s a huge pissing contest between our Oyabun and Eiji Shinoda. He was absent for the wake yesterday, and only I and the Oyabun had stayed the overnight vigil.  But it’s his brother that’s dead, so he will undoubtedly attend today’s funeral, and attend it as our guest. He will bring all his men nonetheless, the  _defectors_. So, we have to have at least double our own to make him feel small. Something I greatly relish.

I lean my elbows on the cold railing overlooking the vast courtyard. It’s filled with around five hundred men dressed in their best suits, looking the better than they probably did on their weddings. They don’t look too sad about Masahiro’s death. The ones who do have gone over to Eiji’s side. But there’s something attractive about men in mourning, it adds a certain sincerity to their faces. Sometimes I wonder what they would think if they knew I was gay. Maybe they suspected it already, I mean I don’t go to great lengths to hide it, but I grew up with some of these guys, taking communal baths with them, and I have to say it was rather… _difficult,_ or interesting, depending on how you look at it.

But they were behaving for now. And everything was set up as per my very,  _very_  specific instructions. The uniform way they bow when each new guest paid their respects is a thing of beauty and speaks volumes about how we are professionals and not the uncultured hooligans the media portrays us as, exactly as I intended. The only thing that would make me happier was if I could trade their suits for kimono like some of the women. Most of my countrymen are suckers for people striving to protect their traditions and customs against the invading western influences. It would rally a lot of them to our side. However, I can’t be sure that the decision would be uninfluenced by my proclivities, and hence I have deferred it for now.

The Oyabun’s car pulls up to the driveway and I make my way downstairs to greet her.

I bow as she steps out, looking absolutely stunning. The black of her Kimono stands stark against the brown of her wizened skin. Her glossy grey hair is pulled up elegantly and held in place by a silver brooch. She looks as stern as she always does, her eyes hard and cold as they look at me briefly. She has given me permission, so I walk alongside her.

We stand among the other guests as they slowly walk up to where her husband’s coffin is placed, and through the small window that showed just his face and part of his neck, you wouldn’t even know what a mess I had made of his intestines. The coffin is filled with flowers, more of them are placed in it by the guests, and their bright colors offset the pallor of his skin.

A slight disturbance in the crowd tells me that Eiji must have arrived. He marches in with his men, all dressed identically in suits, ours keep a respectful silence. As he walks past us though, he stares me straight in the eye with a look of such pure hatred that a weaker man would have keeled over.

I understand his sentiments, I really do. If someone had killed Suzuna I don’t know what I would have done. And maintaining civility at a funeral organized by the one had murdered her would be the furthest thing from my mind. But I’m not in that position right now, and so take great pleasure in the fact that he is.

The priest takes him to the coffin and he stands before it with hands clasped. He was probably praying he could avenge him. He stays that way for some time and then lights incense at an altar setup with photographs of Masahiro and waits cocooned by his men on all sides.

The Oyabun and I are the last to pay our respects. I go through the motions of bowing and closing my eyes and placing the flowers, secretly grateful that she was not stopping me from doing so. Her face still betrays nothing as she looks at the corpse of her husband, she holds her palm just above his face, not touching him, but almost, with her eyes closed, reliving something she shared with him in pleasanter times. Then she nods, she was done.

The priest then closes the window, hiding away his face. It would be the last time anyone sees him.

It reminds of the first time I saw his face, he looked the same. It was shortly after my fourth birthday, and it was snowing that time of year. My parents did drugs, dealing, using, everything. This brought them in direct contact with Masahiro, and they had pissed him the hell off.

I was asleep in my bedroom that night, what woke me was my real mother yelling loudly in German and some other voices yelling back in Japanese. I was still sleepy so I just pulled the covers over my head and tried to go back to sleep, and I must have managed to get a few seconds more, because the next thing I knew, I was woken by the loudest sound I had ever heard, it is followed by the wailing cry of my baby sister.

I fumbled my way across the darkened house and slowly walked to the edge of the staircase and peeped through the gaps the banister. He had looked at me then, looked me right in the eye as he and smiled. He had shot a hole in the ceiling.

Masahiro has gotten a Reinmyo now, a false name that is given to the deceased to prevent the return of their soul when their name is called. He gets a long and rare one written in highly prestigious, ancient Kanji that most of us can hardly read, it’s supposed to reflect how virtuous the person had been in their lifetimes, but in this case, it’s a reflection of our steep donation to the shrine.

Then came the task of transporting the body to the crematorium. And the Priest chants various sutras that are supposed to assist him along the afterlife. He needs all the help he can he get. We clasp our hands in prayer too, prayer beads slung on our palms. And the body slowly descends into the furnace. The smell is a horrible.

We pick his bones from the ashes using chopsticks and place them in an urn, sure to pick up the pieces of his feet first and head last lest he be placed upside down. The urn is then moved into the Reikyusha, the chosen hearse was a beautiful black gilded design mounted on the back of a Toyota.

It’s very suitable for a man of his stature, the only shining, golden thing in a sea of men and women dressed in black. There are twenty cars trailing slowly behind it, bearing many different flower arrangements. The streets are lined with thousands of Yakuza that appear from everywhere. The police are there too, posted at strategic locations and more afraid of us than we were of them. You would think he was a national hero with the number of people surrounding us.  The car with the Hearse is bordered by ten men walking in two straight lines, in perfect synchrony, and its followed by a row of chanting Monks dressed in grey. There are civilians there too, staring at us in awe and morbid curiosity. Cars and buses halt to make room for us, school traffic is diverted.

This serves as a reminder to the people and to the government that we are here and that we are strong, and that the only way they can deal with us is by playing nice.

It rains as the urn is placed in the Yakuza graveyard. Laid permanently to rest. The headstone has his name written in elaborate fashion, coupled with the Oyabun’s name, Yamakichi Ayako. The red in which it was written would be removed when she would come to rest here as well.

Shockingly, the whole thing passed without incident. After a few hours, when the guests leave, the vehicles and the police have all cleared up and night falls, the Oyabun retires to her mansion.

Now would be the ideal time for me to go get Suzuna. Who for obvious reasons wasn’t present. I frankly have no idea how I’m going to face her, but she would need someone to be there for her right now, and I had already wasted two days with my stay in the hospital and now with the funeral.

So, I pull Chen along and drive there before I can think about things. But that’s something I can never get my brain to stop doing, and off it goes on an endless and unpleasant journey of how her opinion of me would change. Would she ever find it in herself to trust me after this? Will it scar her forever? Who am I kidding? Of course it will. No one gets to walk away from something like that unscathed, and it’s my fault she was dragged into this world. I squeeze the steering wheel tight enough that I can’t feel my hands after a while,  _my fault, my fault…_

“ _Youuur fauulllt_.”

My arms jerk the steering wheel to the side and I barely avoid ramming my car into a truck next to us. The  _thing_  had appeared right next to my face, and I smell it and hear its wet, strained breathing, my heart is thundering so badly it hurts my chest.

I mutter under my breath and loosen my tie and try to regulate my breathing. How many times had I asked the thing not to show up out the blue like that?

“Your fault.  _Your fault_.”

The masked Demon jerks its head to look at me from where it was hovering next to mine. It was furious I wasn’t answering, it would get me in my sleep for that. But I’m not going to acknowledge its presence now, I had reached Kimiko’s apartment. It disappears.

Maybe bringing Chen along was a bad idea. He is pulling all kinds of strange looks for the others who live in the apartment with his general twitchiness and neon green hair. An old couple who had been in the lift even run outside when they see us waiting to get in. He just smiles at their horror and discomfort, a quality I greatly admired in the man.

“It’s going to be okay, Jongin-Nim.” Chen says though, as we stand in front of Kimiko’s door and I think that maybe he isn’t so oblivious to things after all. I nod and knock on the door. Someone looks through the peep-hole and then she opens the door after unlocking what I imagine must be about a thousand locks.

It’s a middle-aged woman I don’t recognize.

“You must be Jongin-San,” She says, looking apprehensively at Chen, who is clawing at his tie, like an emaciated zombie that is uncomfortable in the tux he was buried in.

“Konnichiwa!” He says extra cheerfully bringing his face close to hers, and she steps back with a hand on her chest, I don’t respond, and walk right through the door.

“Yo-Your sister is with Kimiko-San in the kitchen,” She says, “I’m her editor…she has been expecting you for a few days, so go right in, I was leaving now anyway. You look a lot like your…” She continues, and I stop paying attention. I can’t anymore.

Kyungsoo is here.

Kyungsoo is here, and he’s kissing Kimiko. And they are cooking. And his hands are in her red dyed hair. And he’s kissing Kimiko.

“Ni-San!” Suzuna comes running towards me, shocking the two to break their kiss and look at us. She collides with me so forcefully it sends me hurtling towards Chen, who is a solid wall of steel behind me. I hold her with both arms, feeling my face move into the expression that could be called a smile. And Kyungsoo smiles back.


	8. Stirring Calm Waters

Kyungsoo hadn’t expected Jongin to barge in like that. It’s his father’s funeral today and he had guessed that the guy would be busy with the arrangements for longer. But here he is, in Kimiko’s living room with a Joker wannabe lingering by the door. Well there was nothing to be done now, so he just smiles.

When Jongin smiles back, reserved and more or less unaffected, there is a twisting in Kyungsoo’s chest that feels an awful lot like guilt. He wouldn’t let it show, not even a modicum because Jongin would catch it instantly, and if he did, what he had done would become something he  _should_  feel guilty for. He couldn’t let that happen, he would have to make it seem like he didn’t think anything of his relations with Kimiko, like it  _is_ nothing.

“Are you alright?” He asks Suzuna and she nods, he looks so concerned, it changes his eyes so much. Maybe Suzuna was someone Jongin cared about in earnest. Too bad. Kyungsoo had thought he was smarter than that.

The girl hugs him again, and he holds her cautiously, like he’s afraid she would to push him away if he held her fully. Why is he being so transparent today? He wasn’t usually this easy to read.

“So…” Suzuna says then, taking his bandaged hand and turning it over, “The Oyabun’s let you in again?”

“Mmm.” Jongin’s face suddenly becomes absolutely blank for a few seconds, then he smiles blindingly bright, “I will be sure not to let her down!”

Kimiko huffs beside Kyungsoo, she is angry. And like all her other feelings, it’s so plainly apparent on her face that it borders on obscene. She has been on edge ever since Suzuna had appeared, always looking for a way to ask him questions about Jongin but refraining each time because she did not know if their relationship allowed for things like that yet. Her doubts mostly extended to whether Kyungsoo had any professional involvement with the Yakuza or not, he could tell by the way she was treating his friendship with Jongin more as a business partnership they couldn’t talk about. It didn’t seem like she had any doubts about Kyungsoo’s interest in her though, or about his heterosexuality. Somehow, she found Suzuna to be greater threat than Jongin, in fact, she didn’t think of Jongin as a threat at all, at least not in a romantic sense.  How could she think he would be interested in a high school girl? All this showed how much Kimiko is really capable of understanding him.

“Kimiko,” Jongin says softly, he had walked up to them, “Thank you for your hospitality. I owe you a great debt, and you are free to collect it at any time, I will do everything in my power to repay you for this kindness.” He bows.

Kyungsoo can see that Kimiko is unsure of how to react. He wonders if she would hold on to her revulsion in the face of such politeness. Jongin is always captivatingly innocent when he wants to be. He could stand holding a severed head on a mountain of corpses, bloody sword in hand, and still look convincingly guiltless. Such is the power of a pretty face in the possession of someone talented at wielding it. It was doubly disarming when it was real. This time it is, Kyungsoo can see it, Kimiko doesn’t stand a chance.

“It’s nothing,” She says, averting her gaze from his fierce sincerity, “She is a pleasure to have around.”

In the past two days, Suzuna had told Kimiko a great deal about herself, with some covert coersion from Kyungsoo. And the knowledge that the girl had no active participation in the Yakuza and had only been a victim, had doubled Jongin’s guilt in her eyes. Kyungsoo did not understand why though, and he hadn’t yet asked Kimiko about it. But he knew she is on some kind of mission   _free_ Suzuna from Jongin. Kyungsoo was dying to see how she would execute it.

“You too Kyungsoo, for taking me to the hospital,” Jongin says to Kyungsoo, “Your mother was very kind during my stay.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He says sternly, Kimiko turns to him in his peripheral vision and squeezes his hand, “Don’t make us worry like that again…” Kyungsoo makes his voice trail off, “I had almost given up hope at one point.”

That was such a good performance, he would buy the act himself.

“It’s an occupational hazard.” Jongin shrugs, barely sparing him a glance, he’s unimpressed. “So, we will be off then Kimiko.” He says, extending his hand to his sister.

“Ah sure,” Suzuna’s shoulders sag a little, the poor thing had gotten quite comfortable here, “I have some things to take along, I’ll be back.” She says, heading up to the room she had been staying in.

“Um, Jongin?” Kimiko clears her throat, “Ah, I…I don’t think Suzuna should go with you.”

Jongin raises an eyebrow, “Pardon me?”

“I have learned about her state, she told me herself, and I don’t think she deserves to live in that kind of environment when she clearly doesn’t want that life.”

Jongin just stares for a time, as if he was making sure that Kimiko was doing what she is doing, then he huffs a laugh, and it’s menacing.  _So menacing_.

“And what makes you think  _you_  have a say in it, Kimiko-San?”

“She doesn’t want to go.” Kimiko continues, and she is nervous, “She  _hates_  it with you, I can see it in her face. I…I won’t let you take her.”

“ _Ho?_ ” The green haired man behind Jongin smiles, clutching the gold handle of his Katana, he looks at Jongin as if he was expecting him to draw his sword and hack Kimiko to pieces. But Jongin is standing still.

Kyungsoo can see Kimiko’s trembling, and to be honest, the crazy man made him anxious too. He wonders if he should intervene. Jongin looks irritated enough that he may not stop the guy if he decides to cross his limits.

“This will be the eighth time she changes schools in the last year,” Kimiko continues, the stupid girl, her voice taking on a tremor, “She moves into a new house every three months, and no matter where she goes, your people still find her because you guys are everywhere.

“She has no semblance of a normal life. No friends. She can’t even  _make_  friends because she will inevitably put them in danger or have to lie to them the whole time! She suffers and suffers, and for what? Suzuna did not join the Yakuza,” Kimiko points her finger at Jongin, “ _You_   _did_!”

“You’ve got some spunk, don’t you?” The green haired yakuza laughs, it’s an angry and irritated laugh, undoubtedly bad.  Like a dog who’s master you’ve offended, he advances toward Kimiko with his sword drawn and teeth bared, “… _amkae_ ”

Kimiko scrambles backwards at that and knocks down the tea cups on the table, Kyungsoo moves to push her behind him, and searches frantically for anything he could use as a shield, on finding nothing within reach, he decides to use himself as one and stands his ground. He was going to die, he was going to die because Kimiko didn’t know when to shut up.

“Stop.”  The Yakuza heir raises one palm and just with that, halts the advance of the crazed beast with all the command of a Prince.

“We do not kill indiscriminately anymore, Chen-San…” He says, and throws Kyungsoo a disgusted look, “…No matter how badly we want to do it.”

Kyungsoo smirks, Jongin had only shared the information about Suzuna’s affairs with him. And yes, Kyungsoo had let it slip to see what would happen. It was precisely this that had allowed Kimiko to approach Suzuna in a way that the girl felt she could reveal more about herself. He had hoped that it would set Jongin’s alarm bells ringing and serve as fodder for all kinds of doubt regarding the nature of his relationship with Kimiko.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Kimiko’s grating voice interrupts the building tension between them, “They have legally adopted only you.” She pushes Kyungsoo aside and stands next to him. So, they are a team now, is it?

“They only want you, Suzuna has not participated in any Yakuza activity herself. We know you want what’s best for her and going back with you isn’t it. Take her out of that world Jongin, you can, if you stop being so selfish.”

“Kimiko-San,” Jongin breathes, “With all due respect, you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. Stick to drawing your repugnant manga and leave the matters of my family to  _me_.”

Oooh.

A thrill shoots down Kyungsoo’s spine at his words. Jongin is angry. Oh, he is really,  _angry_. He has to fight to keep the smile from his face.

“That was uncalled for, Jongin.” He says, and places a hand on the oblivious Kimiko’s waist, to pull her closer, “She is only thinking of what’s best for Suzuna.” That actually makes Jongin flinch a little. _Go on…lunge at her, claw her face off, prove you’re worthy of me._

He opens his mouth to say something, but is interrupted by a distinguished sounding female voice, “I’m ready to go Ni-San,” Suzuna had returned, and from the look on her face, it is clear that she had heard the entire exchange. Just with those few words, she had thwarted all of Kimiko’s efforts.

Kyungsoo searches Jongin’s face for any sign of that anger that flashed in his eyes just now. But it had disappeared, his moment of vulnerability along with it. Kimiko on the other hand is shaking from it. He wasn’t taking the bait.  _Damn it, just when things were getting good…_

“We will be on our way.” He says, and Suzuna bows to the both, following him. The Joker’s gaze lingers on Kyungsoo though, and he gives him a knowing look _. I’m watching you_ … it says,  _I know what you’re doing…_ Or maybe Kyungsoo imagined it.

The empty silence their departure leaves is beaten to death by Kimiko almost instantly.

“Gah! How dare he…” she throws her cellphone against the wall, “How dare he play with his sister’s life like that!”

“Kimiko, I think it was a little too sudden. You can’t expect him to accept what you say immediately, I’m sure he will see the wisdom behind your words. Let’s give him some time?”

Kimiko pushes red hair behind her ear, “Kyungsoo, I know I should probably not be asking you this, but why do you hang out with him? He is insane, and so is his friend. You two are so different it’s almost funny, but you have been friends for how long now? Longer than us?”

“It’s complicated…” He sighs deeply, picking up the abused parts of her phone, “For now, it’s not something I can get out of. But trust me, I’m not doing anything illegal, and it’s not the Yakuza part of him that I came to be friends with, I found that out much later.”

“I knew it.” Kimiko sits down and grabs an apple, turning it over in her hands, “He hid it from you, didn’t he?”

Hmmm, she was really working up a grudge against Jongin. Would it be wise to stoke these flames? No, actually, it would make interactions with him difficult, and since he planned on continuing said interactions in full force, it’s best if he promotes cordiality on Kimiko’s part. He would have to change the course of the conversation.

“I don’t think it’s the first thing anyone would want to reveal about themselves if they could help it. And he’s been through a lot these past few days, with his father dying and…you must have seen his hand.”

Kimiko seems to realize that her timing might not have been the best, and Kyungsoo can see the beginnings of remorse on her face. “It’s just! He appears out of nowhere and then he is taking Suzuna back to those monsters, and I just…I feel helpless.”

“I’m so sorry.” The cell phone has a cracked screen and the panel is in pieces, he wouldn’t be able to put it back together, it was dead. “It’s my fault that you are part of this. And I even hid it from you so long.” He averts his gaze in guilt.

“It’s understandable, I suppose.” Kimiko relents, now she feels responsible for making him feel bad, and not understanding his predicament, “Maybe I just don’t know him that well.”

“Right?” Kyungsoo turns hopeful eyes to her, his face brightening, “he’s really not that bad, if you get to know him. He’s had a very hard life. Perhaps you could be frien- _no_ , that’s asking too much…”

“No, it’s not,” Kimiko says quickly, cutting a smiley face on her apple with her nails, “Maybe I could try, for Suzuna’s sake.”

Perfect. Kimiko looks like she sees Jongin in a sympathetic light now, or at least, she doesn’t see him as completely reprehensible. And that’s a start. As for Jongin’s opinion of Kimiko, Kyungsoo doesn’t want him to change it, not that he could make him. He is immune to most of his manipulation anyway. Besides, he wanted Jongin to writhe in agony for a bit, he looked strangely appealing when he was all furious like that.

Now to associate fun pheromones with this topic.

“That’s all I can ask of you.” He gives Kimiko a lingering look that makes her blush slightly, “I think we need to buy you a new phone.” He says then, holding up the remains mournfully.

“I wish I had thrown it at Jongin.” She huffs, pouting.

“I have to say, I have never seen anyone stand up to a crazy Yakuza quite like that.” He says, slowly bringing his face close to hers, “That temper of yours is very dangerous.”

“I’m not as patient as you…” Kimiko smirks, “…actually I’m really impatient.” She leans forward on her chair, biting her lips, and Kyungsoo bends down to oblige her with a kiss, tilting her chin up with his fingers. He meant for it to be brief, but Kimiko draws him back in when he retreats, her lips insistent and her hands running up his chest. They separate for a moment, her gaze darts from his eyes to his lips, where their warm breath mingled.

And they lunge at each other again. She lifts herself up by his shoulders, and he helps her with a hand under her thigh.  _Dangerous…_  Kyungsoo would have to stop now, this was escalating too fast. Before he knows it, she's sitting on the edge of the table with her body against his, yanking his shirt from his belt, he pulls her hips flush against his, and he feels every curve, soft and demanding and pressing for him to do more, more, _more_.

But…he can’t. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t.

He wrenches away from her lips, breath still ragged, and takes a step back.

Kimiko pulls her arms from him slowly, he can’t see her, but he can hear her swallow. She giggles then, and Kyungsoo whips his head toward her, frantically searching her face, is she upset? Does she feel rejected? Does she have doubts about his feelings?

“My my Kyungsoo…” She smiles, pulling her skirt down, and he smiles back after a beat. Then she bursts out laughing. Kyungsoo is confused.

“You’re shy.” She concludes, hopping off the table to smooth some resilient creases from her clothes, “Dinner then?”

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, clearing his throat, “Dinner.”

***

 


	9. To, odd beginnings

Kyungsoo never used to stay at school after classes. It was a waste of time and kept him from his carefully planned schedule. But the school festival was coming up he had no choice, just like he had no choice in being subjected to what the boy from the other section was doing in the room he thought was empty.

His name was Kim Jongin, if he remembered correctly. He was new to the school, and the other one was his classmate, someone whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn. The boy had Jongin pressed against the window, his uniform shirt ripped open, his mouth devouring the bronze skin revealed. Jongin’s eyes were closed, and his lips parted in sinful ecstasy, while the other boy grunted in time with his thrusting hips, pinning the slender body in place so that Jongin had to balance his weight on the window sill and his shoulders.

Kyungsoo takes a few steps backward when his brain catches up with what he is seeing and hits the door behind him. Jongin’s eyes snap open and he fixes his gaze on Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo cannot look away. The other boy hasn’t noticed his presence and moves to kiss Jongin’s neck, which he welcomes with a soft sigh and a tilting of his head. Taking that as encouragement, the boy changes the angle their bodies meet, seeming to drive even deeper into his body and Jongin’s back arches up in response, his eyes scrunching shut in pleasure pain.

 _Does it really feel that good?_  

Kyungsoo’s throat is suddenly dry and he turns away from them with all his might, walking resolutely back home. The image permanently burned into his memory.

***

The next day, Kyungsoo tried his best not to think about the previous day’s episode. Mostly because it irritates him that something so base could affect him so greatly. He is not one to give in to idle day dreaming about sex like others his age, but for some reason, his mind would drift back to Jongin’s face no matter what he did to distract himself. Maybe he is just surprised about how brazen the two had been, or perhaps he had not seen to guys going at it before.

“Kyungsoo-Kun, please solve problem 4.”

“Hai.”

Kyungsoo goes to the blackboard and begins working it out with ease, math…math is simple, predictable for how logical it is. A math problem would never expect you to say the answer is two, not ten because it felt bad. It accepts facts. Facts like he would never be able to forget the look on Jongin’s face till he died.

The piece of chalk in his hand snaps in two.

He picks up another and proceeds to finish the problem at twice the previous pace, so he can have these appallingly juvenile thoughts somewhere away from the eyes of his classmates. Once done, he smiles sweetly at the teacher, pleased with him as always and returns to his seat, spending the remaining fifteen minutes of the class, irrationally angry with himself.

He sees Jongin at lunch. He’s with a girl. She’s always with him, Ayano or something, an upperclassman. She can’t be his girlfriend; there is an undercurrent of hostility between them. Then again, they could be in a relationship and they had a fight? Because of Jongin going off and…

Or perhaps he’s overthinking, and they’re just friends.

“Oh, it’s the first time I noticed you looking at a girl, Kyungsoo.” One of the boys at his table says, “And Ayano-San at that!”

Hmm, if he denied this, it would only serve to make him looking at her even more conspicuous, but accepting it would mean he would have to keep up the act for quite some time and endure the rumors that would undoubtedly spread. The plus side of that is he would be able to gain more knowledge about her and then in turn about Jongin. But…why did he want information about Jongin in the first place? He didn’t, really, he couldn’t care less. Right?

“Well, I heard she was not being helpful at all in the preparations for the festival.” There, a professional concern, “And I don’t remember that Kim person volunteering either.” Now that’s a good excuse.

“Ah,” The boy says, sounding disappointed, “Don’t expect them to either, Kim is a really cool guy, but I heard he has part time job that keeps him really busy. And Ayano-San, is too pretty to work, ne? People like her should not be made to do menial labor.”

“What part time job? Is his family not well to do?” Looking at Jongin, and the extravagant cars that drop him off in the mornings, Kyungsoo didn’t think he had any trouble with money.

“Who knows? No teachers ask him anything because his grades are excellent, and he looks like  _that_.”  The boy jabs his chopsticks dramatically in Jongin’s direction, “You sexy people get away with everything.”

Kyungsoo watches Jongin as he picks at his food, not really interested in eating it, he is still talking to Ayano who seems to be explaining something very serious to him, and their eyes meet.

Kyungsoo doesn’t feel the urge to look away like he had heard was the typical response to this, instead he finds his eyes glued to the other’s once again. Their blue-grey gleam, otherworldly in the way it caught the light, looked unfairly enticing framed by his dark hair. Jongin’s lip quirks very slightly under Kyungsoo’s attention, and he picks up a piece of tofu from his box and puts it in his mouth, tilting his head in a challenge.

It stirs something visceral in Kyungsoo, and Ayano notices him. He has to look away, but he catches Jongin laughing as he does so.

***

The next time Kyungsoo sees Jongin, it’s in a scene only slightly less disconcerting than the first one.

This time it is after the school festival had ended. Someone told him some students had run off into the woods, and it’s his responsibility to get them for reason. He didn’t really mind though, it gave him a chance to escape the cloying masses and their endless wheedling.

He wound his way through the many stalls set up by the students, it is a very diverse array this time with many unique displays like the very strange “Sea animal makeup stand”, “Alien café”, “Guess the brand of ketchup competition,” and “The Campus Detectives Guild.” There is even a whole section that consists of only Otaku attractions, the section Kyungsoo had been resisting visiting himself.

The woods are quiet in comparison, the noise from the festival still filtered through but it feels far away. There is a cool breeze blowing softly through the leaves. It almost feels like the school and the students never existed at all when he got further in, he should have asked the names of the students who ran off, because he has no idea what to call out now. But that’s a good thing, if he could sneak up on them, he would find out what they were up to, which is bound to be something like smoking or drinking. Or if he is really unlucky like the last time, they could be making out. He takes in a deep breath and sighs, why did he volunteer for this again?

“Stop! I won’t do it again, stop, please.”

He hears a hoarse voice pleading in the distance. So much for the peace and quiet, he thinks, and walks towards it, hoping it was just silly bullies. There is clearing there, and he can see some four people standing, but…huh, they are dressed in suits and older than the students.  _Adults?_

Kyungsoo hides among the trees as so he can get closer without being noticed.

“You think you can blackmail me?”

It’s Jongin, and he has a Katana in his hands. What the hell? How did he bring that to school? It looked like the real deal, and the way he held it, his grip sure and confident, it seemed he was used to handling it. Kyungsoo’s heart rate rises sharply, and he presses himself against the tree even more. There is someone crumpled to a heap on the ground, Ayano’s there too.

One of the men in the suits kicks the boy on the ground, and he lets out a pained moan.

“Did you really think we would not take measures to protect ourselves in this swarm of sniveling commoners? Man, you really are fucking stupid.” Ayano says.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The boy on the ground whimpers, and Kyungsoo is able to get a glimpse of his face then. It’s that boy Jongin was with that day, what’s his name? What’s his name? Seito? Seiichi? Sehun? Yes, that’s Sehun.  And he looks like he’s in pretty bad shape.

The Men proceed to kick him again, till Kyungsoo cannot hear his cries of pain anymore.  _Their attire, their manner of speaking and heavy use of honorifics._  Jongin seems to be the leader, Ayano too is someone import. This led to three conclusions.

First, Jongin and Ayano had hired these goons to beat Minami up. Second, the part time job the others spoke of is that of a thug, and third, which while it seems horrendously unbelievable, but is probably the correct conclusion…that Jongin is, Jongin is… Yakuza. In which case, it’s best if Kyungsoo leaves before he is-

Shit. Jongin is looking at him.

Again, Kyungsoo feels like he couldn’t move, Jongin has pinned him with his eyes. Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to do. Is he in danger here? This is definitely not something that Jongin could overlook. But something told him the other boy wouldn’t mind his presence.

He’s right.

Jongin sits down on the grass, as if he had not seen Kyungsoo at all, propping his sword on the ground next to Minami’s head. He lifts the almost unconscious boy’s head, pulling it up by the hair. “If you ever think of crossing me again, Sehun, you’re going to wish you were dead.”

Kyungsoo takes that as his cue to leave. He skips going back to the festival. If Jongin does think of questioning him, that’s the first place he will look. So, he just heads straight for home. At least he has a new image of Jongin to distract him now. What had Minami done? Weren’t they in some sort of relationship? 

 _Yakuza_ …The Yakuza.

 _Tchi!_  Who do they think they are? Terrorizing high school students. It shows how lowly they are, preying on the weak and then pretending to protect them, even going so far as to demand their respect. Their activities cost Japan, and the government refused to do anything about it because the politicians were placed there by the Yakuza themselves. And aren’t Jongin and Ayano too young to have joined their ranks? That means they’re children of Yakuza. No wonder Jongin has such an arrogant air about him.

As his house becomes visible in the distance, Kyungsoo feels the exhaustion from the day’s work. All he wants to do now is sleep, he would process what he had seen in the morning. Damn that Jongin and his opportunistic pestering. But why is he bothered so much anyway? He’s just a criminal, he should be more concerned about poor Sehun. If he had attracted the Yakuza’s ire, it is unlikely they would leave him alone for quite some time-

Kyungsoo halts when he hears a second set of footsteps, his senses were already on high alert, making him startle and jump at even the tiniest of sounds, but he is sure he hadn’t imagined it, the footsteps behind him stop as well. He’s just at the gate of his house.

“Ah, so this is where you live, Voyeur-San.”

Jongin.

He freezes for a moment, his thoughts coming to a screeching halt. Kyungsoo’s heart is once again beating wildly in his chest, and his feet twitch to burst through the gate and into the safety of his house, but he somehow schools his features into a calm but slightly angry expression and turns around.

“Kim.” He says, and as soon as the words leave his lips, he can feel his body take on the relaxed posture of someone who is utterly unafraid. Filling his visage with the easy confidence he’s known for.

Jongin narrows his eyes slightly, “Based on our very personal interactions of late, you could call me Jongin, don’t you think?” he laughs, “Do Kyungsoo, was it?”

“Where are your men?” Kyungsoo asks him, looking him over in a purposefully invasive way, “Didn’t bring them along?”

“No.” Jongin is unfazed by the scrutiny, “I want you all to myself,” he says, and steps closer to dip tan fingers into Kyungsoo’s uniform lapel to pick a twig from it, reveling in the slight hitch in his breath, “Unless of course, you’re into that sort of thing.”

 _The nerve!_   Kyungsoo clenches his jaws against the twinge in his gut, it set off a series of images in his head that made him want to cringe, “Keep your perversions to yourself, Kim-Kun,” he snaps, pushing Jongin forcefully away, he can feel the heat rushing to his face.

“ _Oh_ , touchy touchy,” Jongin sniggers, all too aware of Kyungsoo’s discomfort, but the sound of it is strangely attractive…

This was the first time Kyungsoo had seen Jongin up close, and from here the angle of his cheekbones, the sound of his voice and the lines of his body were at once both dangerous and inviting, or were they inviting because they were dangerous?

Whatever the reason, Kyungsoo was finding it hard to concentrate on what he was saying.

“Oya…” A self-satisfied smile pulled at Jongin’s full lips, “It looks like I have caught your interest,  _Kyungsoo-Kun_.” He says, “But it seems you have been seeing things you aren’t supposed to, ne?”

“I’m not interested in you or your personal life, you can beat up all the people you want.”

“Sure, sure…” Jongin waves his hands dismissively, “I have faith in your judgment, Kyungsoo-Kun. As have I in your excellent taste, judging by the choice of your cologne, and your tendency to avoid the company of the majority of our schoolmates.” He peers behind Kyungsoo at his house, “By the way, how many of you in your family? Brothers, sisters, anyone you would want to keep safe?”

“Just the three of us,” Kyungsoo says, stiffening at the veiled threat.

“Would be a shame if anything happened to them, then.”

Anger rushes through Kyungsoo’s body like a raging inferno, at the heart of it was a crippling fear, and a fierce wave of protectiveness. He launches at Jongin fast as a snake and grabs him by the collar, smashing him into the compound wall. It takes the other boy by surprise.

“Threaten me all you want,” He lifts him slightly up higher, “leave my family out of it. I don’t care if you’re Yakuza or not,” he seethes, “ _I will kill you_.”

Jongin is quiet for a while, his expression indecipherable, blue eyes searching Kyungsoo’s for something, then he bursts out laughing, it shakes his whole body, and it’s disturbing, almost like he can’t stop it.

Kyungsoo lets him go roughly and walks straight home.


	11. Better late than dead

The sun filters through the square on the wooden doors to the Oyabun’s official meeting room, casting all the gathered elders in ochre light. I always like that about traditional houses, their sense of homeliness and history. It’s been a while since I came here to the main house, and like each time before, I feel like a very unwelcome guest. After the recent events that took place here, murder and all, the feeling is only amplified.

But assassinations are surprisingly common in the Yakuza. Someone could put a bullet through my skull right now, and my dead face would show no surprise. The meeting had been going on for two hours now, and various discussions about expenditure, foreign deals, domestic deals, our Kabukicho businesses, and all the rest had been covered. The Oyabun had a cigarette in her hand already, it meant she was losing her patience. Some of the men here had been inefficient in their missions and nothing ticks her off more than that. What a great time for me to be giving my proposal.

“The Rokudaime will now present his proposals in honor of being promoted to second in command.” The Oyabun’s chief counselor, Suho, announces. That’s my cue.

I take a deep breath, and sit up straighter, “Firstly, I am honored to be joining you all at this meeting in the position once held by my departed father.” I say, bowing to all gathered.

 “As a test of my mettle, I have been given the task of finding a solution to the recently increased police interference in our affairs. I hope what I have thought of and prepared will be up to your expectations.”

All the elders at the table nod, their faces stern. The death of Masahiro was still a sore topic, and if I was to justify myself for those actions, ensuring this proposal went well was imperative. I had to be good enough that they would never get a chance to remember him fondly, I would have to be good enough to wipe him from their minds.  But they all had been treating me like a child so far, so my approach would have to be very delicate and carefully pitched.

“It’s the bitter truth, Oyabun. Things are changing for us, some for the better and others not so much. Unfortunately, our relationship with the police belongs to the latter category. From how things are now, it’s almost impossible for me to believe that there was a time when the police visited our offices as guests and were handed out a list of our members in a civil and friendly manner. But our once relationship is under great strain. They have recently taken to convicting us, publicly defaming us, defying us, and abandoning all sense of honor. As a result, our age-old traditions and the weight of our existence have been disappearing from the public psyche.”

There is a murmur of agreement from everyone. We all shared the dismay these new developments brought us. It was a pressing problem and with the split of the Yamakichi Gumi, it had to be addressed immediately. Both groups would be defined by the policies they adopted now, and ours had to be better than Shinoda’s at any cost.

“Enrollments to the Yamakichi Gumi are at an all-time low. Most kids these days choose to join local gangs instead of us,” I tell them, watching their reactions very carefully. My future as successor depends heavily on how these people see me now, and I can’t afford to disappoint, “But it’s not just us, the whole of the Yakuza is facing this problem. And the new image we have of suit wearing, cigar smoking, criminal gentlemen is not helping things.”

The suit wearing, cigar smoking people at the table don’t seem to agree. There are quite a few sour faces, and some angry ones. The Oyabun’s however, is strangely neutral. That look was very disconcerting because it made it impossible from me to know what she was thinking. 

“Kai-Kun, we have an image to maintain!” Someone says.

“I agree it prevents us from being perceived as brash thugs, but it also reduces enrollment by forty eight percent.” I hand him the calculations I took the trouble of writing down for this purpose exactly. “Here is the math.”

The man looks at the page with utter shock, I had even mentioned all the variables on it, just to be as clear as possible, but he turns to Suho with an incredulous look on his face.

“That decision was taken after much deliberation.” Suho says, “Your idea better not be something as regressive as changing past judgments, Kai-Kun.”

“It isn’t, I assure you,” I say, filling my voice with as much confidence as I can, “Let me explain…”

“Previously, the Yakuza were a group who rescued homeless boys off the streets, nurtured them, trained them, and gave them a sense of control. People would approach us and join in hopes of finding somewhere to belong, somewhere they would feel accepted.

“This phenomenon happens a lot less frequently these days. Why? Aren’t there any helpless people left?” I ask them, “No, they don’t approach us because they don’t think they can _belong_ here. The only reason this happened is because we now portray ourselves as elite and untouchable. And those people who don’t have other options, those who are _desperate_ , prefer to join small local gangs rather than the fancy and flashy Yakuza. They nevertheless get crushed by us or killed, and the few who do get accepted are rarely loyal, because we destroyed the very people that gave them hope and a home.”

“So, you propose we let them run their appalling activities?” The Counselor asks.

“Yes.”

 He is confused. “There is a way to maintain our current image, and also make use of these gangs for something other than manpower and asserting our influence.”

“What can they do that we cannot?” Another one guffaws in the way that people like him did, it always had the ability trivialize everything someone’s said. I was having none of that.

“Everything, Hatsumo san.”  I smile, “For that, the first thing we have to do is get these gangs to work for us, but not as us.”

I wait for them to object to what I’m saying, but they seem to be listening for the moment, “The police are being increasingly irritating. They want the public to see them as competent. Dependable. How do they do that when _we_ ensure that other crime is nearly absent? They break the already tentative faith we have built up over the years and raid our homes, harass us at work, arrest our new recruits.  So, I think it’s about time we give them a taste of what would happen if we weren’t around.”

That catches their attention. Suho looks to the Oyabun and she nods, but her face is still opaque, “We are listening,” he tells me.

“With the split that has occurred, the whole of the country is braced for what they think will be a power struggle of epic proportions. They are right, so the Police are going to be more vigilant to try and establish themselves as the people’s protectors.  And as things stand, we are under greater scrutiny than ever before, so I say let’s turn the spotlight on the tiny local gangs and make ourselves look like the more refined of two evils.”

They don’t seem to understand.

“What I mean is…let’s _contract out_ our less favorable activity.”

 “You mean hire them to work for us?” Suho asks, and his face says he is thinking about it already, working out the possibilities and the pitfalls.

“Precisely.”

“We get these gangs to do our dirty work, and then let them take credit for it.” My speech picks up speed now, Suho was beginning to catch my train of thought, I could see it, “It builds their reputation and helps get the police off our backs. Like yesterday, when the Ichiban Kai beat Shibuuya Yuta to death with baseball bats.”

The room hushes at that, no one was aware that we, or more correctly, _I_ had something to do with his death. His death had been a matter of great speculation and debate.

You see, Shibuuya Yuta was a troublesome man. He was already on very shaky grounds with me and the Gumi from when he began mixing Levamisole in the cocaine supplies and para-methoxyamphetamine into the ecstasy tablets in the region. Drugs he was peddling in the name of the Yakuza.

Now I know ensuring the drugs we deal are the best quality isn’t something to be proud of, but the business isn’t something I can get out of unless I think of other ways to bring in revenue. But these drugs always reach naive and hormonally stupefied teenagers, who don’t know better. That is why I am dead against putting potentially lethal adulterants into these and handing them off to kids at clubs. Shibuuya was operating in my region, and despite many warnings and a few broken bones, he had not stopped his activities. It had led to the death of two high school girls. One of them even had a little brother who saw it all happen.

Their deaths were on me. I couldn’t let him continue.

But that’s not a reason I can give the Oyabun for killing him. Such justifications would make any interest she had in listening to me vaporize instantly. In her mind, anyone stupid enough to buy drugs deserved to be exploited. So, I tell her…

 “He was going to defect to Shinoda-San’s side and take the revenues, deals and profits of his business in our regions. Such betrayal of the kindness you have shown him, Oyabun, it could not be tolerated.”

She says nothing, taking a drag of her cigarette and blowing the smoke out slowly. I resist the urge to swallow in apprehension.

“So, I had the Ichiban Kai, a new group that was terrified of us, wear masks and teach him a lesson. Their faces would be covered, so no one could be convicted for murder as no one knows who landed the shot that killed him. The police are helpless, they cannot blame the Yakuza because none of these are registered members of our ranks, our dirty work is done without a single crease on our suits, a gang has come under our direct control, and said gang will never cross their limits or defy what we ask of them in fear of falling out of favor with us.” It would also serve to prevent these gangs away from being absorbed by Shinoda, because they get to keep their identity and relative freedom if they stick with me.

“But they are still a different group, Kai-Kun. It doesn’t really increase our numbers.” The Counselor says. Suho, ever the skeptic.

“For that, I have devised a system in which they have an option of transferring from their groups if they want to, or to have _dual_ memberships.  No one can resist the option of making substantially more money with almost no repercussions, so we will have many takers. But in order to ensure that we get only the best on our side, there will be preset performance requirements they have to meet. Eventually, we can give those with dual memberships more and more power within their home gangs, indirectly encouraging those who wish to rise in the ranks to do the same.”

All the men at the table break out into a vigorous discussion; the Counselor pushes his glasses further up his nose and gives me a small smile. He was impressed. There is commotion all around as they animatedly debate the new proposal. They all seem very fascinated by it. But my heart however, tentatively awaits the Oyabun’s words, as her opinion was the only one that mattered.

“So, that is my first proposal as second in command.” I bow, “Outsourcing our dirty work. Zero accountability, therefore reduced trouble with the law, a larger pool of manpower, and a strengthening of our image as a socially responsible organization.”

 “This serves as an example for those who are thinking of leaving us for the dog Eiji!”

“Good work Kai Kun!”

 “…amazing, Kai-Kun!”

“Silence.” The Oyabun’s command carries through the racket with a force born of unparalleled superiority, and all of them immediately heed her. She takes a last pull of her cigarette.

“Kai,” She says, my head is bowed in submission, “Your proposal today was…unusual.” She says, “In my book, unusual means unnecessary work, unnecessary trouble.”

I was afraid of that.

“And you _are_ unusual in many ways. Most, I find excruciating and others…” She makes a gesture with her hand “...mildly interesting.”

She squeezes the burning tip of the stub with her fingers to put it out, “We always try to separate ourselves from crass hooliganism. Such things are beneath us. It’s what separates us from the filth of the underground.” Suho hurries to bring the ashtray to her and she drops the cigarette in it languidly, “Do you agree?”

“Well… yes, but-”

“Tsk tsk tsk…” Her hand is raised to cut me off, “Answer only what you’ve been asked, Kai-Kun.” She lights another cigarette, “My expectations from you were low. Always. But time and again, you have proved that your unusualness is probably something we need more of.”

What? Does that mean what I think it means? Excitement begs to charge through my blood, but an uncertainty keeps it somewhat at bay, not allowing me to fully believe it.

“I accept your proposal.” She says.

And the quiet commotion those words cause, is enough to attest their rarity, “Naturally, there are hurdles to overcome. Controlling a gang with no code of honor isn’t child’s play, nor is ensuring their full loyalty. But I will leave it to you. Form a task force and get to it,” She nods to Suho to make the arrangements, “I want the whole of Tokyo to be beneath our feet by the end of this quarter.”

“Hai. I will get right to it, Oyabun, my utmost gratitude for your consideration.”

“You have shown great wisdom and insight with your work, Kai, and a vision for the future.” The surprise at the words makes me look up at her before quickly bowing my head again, she sighs “Look at me.” 

I do, “Plans mean nothing if not executed.” She says, looking in me in the eye, “And I expect nothing but the best from you now… Good work. Prepare to lose your head if you fail me.”  

 

***

Later that day, after a formal dinner with the rest of the family, that was surprisingly cheerful, I felt renewed. The work I had put in paid off, and I had gained an opportunity to prove myself to the Oyabun. The time she had given me was ridiculously little, but I was going to take that as a show of her faith in my skills. It looked like I would have to work myself into the ground from here on out. The finals at college were also looming and I had not been able to catch up with my classes yet. I had  _that_  to think about as well, since I was going beat Kyungsoo’s record as highest scoring graduate after all.

It was still early in the night, so I decide to visit my sister before going home. I had been seeing so little of her these days that I hardly knew what was up with her life. She had to move to the new apartment recently and I hadn’t been there to help her with that either. With a small check on the apartment two doors down that housed some of my men. I make my way towards her new apartment.

The furry blue doormat that she had from when we were kids is at my feet when I knock on her door, and she opens it after some commotion.

“Ah, Ni-San.”

“I brought sweets, the European kind you like.” I hold up the pink box that had every confectionary available at that place.

She just stands aside and lets me in, without her usual air of fondness. I guess I deserved that.

“You didn’t unpack?”

The apartment though is almost empty, and her belongings are in boxes to the side, the mattress is the only thing unpacked, and her laptop.

“What’s the point? You will have me move again anyway, better to stay prepared. I’ll just have to live my life like the fugitive you are.” She closes the door behind her, making me feel as unwelcome as humanly possible.

I’m quite taken aback by her hostility, “This will be the last one for at least a year. I promise.”

“Yeah sure,” She says dismissively, “Is there anything you want?”

I hand her the box of sweets, and she doesn’t take it, “I just came to say hi…” I say then, for some reason needing to look away from her, “See how you were doing.”

She gives me a withering look, “Why? Your minions keeping tabs on me not enough?”

Okay, I had forgotten how irritating teenagers could be, “They are for your safety, not to keep tabs on you. Don’t be ridiculous, Suzuna.”

“Please!” She huffs and walks into her bedroom, where a box of unpacked clothes is on the bed and begins rummaging through it.

“Okay, that’s enough of that.” I say, placing the sweets in the empty refrigerator and picking up some of the boxes lying in the kitchen. She hadn’t even opened the snacks, and she loved them, “You didn’t eat these?”

Suzuna doesn’t respond, so I go to her bedroom, where she is still throwing clothes around.

“Suzuna?”

“No! I haven’t, I don’t want to.” She groans.

“But-”

“Don’t coddle me _Kai_. I’m not a child alright? You missed it with all your screwing around, but I’m not five anymore.” She snaps.

That stung, it really did. I keep the boxes on the ground again, sighing. If she didn’t want to speak to me, I wouldn’t. Taking off my jacket, I roll up my sleeves and begin unpacking the boxes, the first one I opened was the cutlery, so I am about to carry it to the kitchen when Suzuna yanks on my shirt hard enough that the box falls out of my hands. Its contents clattering on the ground.

I frown in her direction, and she glares at me.

“I have to be somewhere, I don’t want to speak to you right now.”

I sigh again “So go, who’s stopping you?” and start to pick up the pieces on the ground. “I liked these mugs you know, especially the Maid Sama one, you are lucky it didn’t break because you would never find a replacement, even in Akihabara-”

“Stop.”

I look up her, and she is still glowering at me, shaking. It’s a look I can’t decipher, is she angry? Sad? both? I have a sudden urge to reach out and hold her, but I don’t do it, panicking because I don’t know what to do, what to say, and I still can’t meet her eyes. So, I don’t, “But-Ah, but this other stuff, I can have replaced,” I say and continue to pick up the chopsticks and the forks, and the knives, “I’ll send one of my people tomorrow…” She holds my wrist to stop me.

“I said stop, Ni-San no baka.” She grits out, taking my hand in hers, pulling it toward her and examining it by tracing her fingers along the bandages, both of us stare at it in silence.

“Did she hurt you a lot?”

I take my hand back. “No, not at all.” I say, and Suzuna gives me a look of such pity that I suddenly feel like leaving, “She had to do it, the others would not stand for partiality. I have killed her husband after all, this is barely anything.”

She presses her palm on her forehead like she had a headache, “I don’t understand you sometimes…”

Okay, I don’t want to talk about this anymore, “So I’ll start with the other clothes?”

“Ni-San, stop.” She says, and there is frustration in her voice, but I’m still walking toward the boxes, “Will you please stop!” She screams then, quite unlike I have ever heard her doing before.

“Unpacking?”

“Sidetracking!”

_Oh._

“Can we speak about what has happened like reasonable people, instead of pushing it down forever and pretending it never happened?” She cries, “I’m not  _you_. I can’t do that! So, I’m asking you to help me, I’m asking you to  _talk_  to me, to at least look at me and not avoid my eyes like I’m the most disgusting… _thing_  that-” She is unable to finish the sentence because a sob chokes her before she could.

And I realize then, what a raging dick I was being, it dawns on me like a red fucking day in hell.

She thinks I find her disgusting? Why? Because of what happened? But I read that this happened to survivors of ra-…. people who went through what she did…

“Suzuna, I would never think that…” I breathe and bend down to hold her in my arms. Why had I not done this before? Why was I so,  _so,_ idiotic? I remember what it felt like, even if I had somehow twisted my memory to lie myself, I could never forget.  

“Then where were you…” She sobs, “…All this time?” grabbing fistfuls of my shirt, her whole body is shivering in my arms.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper in her hair, “I’m sorry. I’m here for you Suzuna, I’m here.”

“But you’re  _not_ , Ni-San, you are never here, and I feel…” She shakes her head, “It’s killing me, don’t you see? I live here  _alone_. I have to do everything by myself. You could die on me any second, and I’m terrified that I won’t even have any memories of us that I can keep. Ka-San and To-San are dead, what’s your excuse?”

My fingers tighten around her small shoulders. Never have I been so truly ashamed of myself. Things would definitely have to change. Everything I am doing is for her happiness, and if that wasn’t achieved, then what would be the point of my existence?

“I wish it could be different Suzuna, I really wish they could, but as things stand…” I pull her back by her shoulders, so I can see her face, “I’m in too deep to get out now. But I won’t let it touch you…again, my work.” I say hesitantly, “And I  _will_  make time for you.”

I would, even if I had to sleep three hours a day. I’m already adjusting my schedule in my head, shifting things around and delegating things to others what I didn’t really have to be there for, “And I’m not going to die okay? That’s something you will never have to worry about.”

Suzuna looks at me with love in her tear stained eyes, “So you  _are_  in there after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“You probably don’t realize it, Ni-San, maybe because it’s become so normal for you now, or maybe  _I_  hadn’t realized because I never saw that part of you.”

I wipe away the tears on her face with a handkerchief, but it smears her eye makeup,  _crap_ , I wipe even harder but that only makes it worse, “Realize what?”

“That you kill people in cold blood.”

My hand stills.

“It’s okay, it’s part of your job, I know.” She says, pushing my hand down, “But I was terrified that day, that you had changed. I watched you kill people, people who have families. And children.”

There it is…

The one thing I was afraid of. My heart picks up its beating. “I-I don’t know what to say…”

I remember her face, I remembered those…disgusting  _animals_  and what they did…to her, who never hurt anyone in her entire life, someone so pure, so innocent. The anger still broiled in my stomach when I thought of them. They deserved to be killed. Some of them I wished I had kept alive just, so they could suffer. But in the middle of all that bloodshed and the cold feel of my sword in my hand, I had not noticed, oh so idiotically, Suzuna screaming for me to stop.

She had been afraid of me that day, I could still see her eyes, the eyes that had not recognized me, or what I had become.

“But you are still here, I can see it.” She pulls my Katana out of its sheath.

“They deserved it.” I say, suddenly irritated that she would criticize me for that, “You don’t have to be all pious and forgive them Suzuna, you can hate them. They deserve it.”

“No…” She shakes her head, looking worriedly at her reflection on the blade. It has been years since she and I sparred, and Suzuna is one of the best swordsmen I ever came across. She even came close to beating Akane once, and that was really saying something. “Nobody deserves death. We agreed on that, remember?” Her tone is half accusing and half pleading, referring to what I said were when we were children.

It made sense back then, because our parents had died and I knew only the pain that I had felt because of it. But now without the blinding scope of unconditional love, I could see the world was better off without them.

“Things don’t work that way in the real world.” I say to her, “People, innocent or otherwise, die every single day. There is no such thing as true justice. It’s time you got over that naive notion.”

She doesn’t like the answer, I knew she wouldn’t. But she was far too idealistic, and I couldn’t understand how, even after all that had happened.

Enough of this now, I might say something to her that I might regret. And talking about the crappy things that happen only gives them more power; they should be forgotten, not paid heed to, they should be shrugged off like the insignificant things they are.

“Say, were you going to meet someone just now?” I ask, trying to bring some cheer back into my voice, “Any boyfriends I have to run a background check on?”

“Right.” Suzuna straightens up slightly, checking the time on her phone, “I completely forgot… I promised I would hang out with Kimiko San and Shiina San tonight.”

“Kimiko?”

The name stirs something uncomfortable in my gut. There is a whole cavern in my brain, overflowing with information about her I was desperately trying to forget, because it reminded me of Kyungsoo in all the wrong ways. But here she is hanging out with my little sister.  _Oh,_   _so annoying_.

“Call it off.” I huff.

“I know she picked a fight with you that day, but she’s nice. Trust me.”

She holds up her phone, it has a picture of Kimiko’s manga, Ansatsu Koi. It was popular right now, everyone was talking about it. How good could it be with such a stupid name?

“Would you like to come along?”

Every cell in my body screams to say no, so of course, I say… “Yes.”


	12. Scotch, and your Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry for the extremely long hiatus, I will update more regularly from now on.  
> Smut ahoy, and mild bondage.

“You’re going to spoil me Soo.” Kimiko can’t believe her eyes, “How the hell did you make this? Wait, what time did you get back?”

“I was off at five, so I thought I would make us something,” Kyungsoo says, “Eat up.”

She dumps her bag by the chair and settles down at the table. Looks like he made Kimchi, her favorite! The table is set, and it smells delicious. It has been a really tiring day, Ansatsu Koi had just ended. And even after the blood, sweat and ink she had put in to make it perfect, the finale hadn’t gone so well with her readers. They had been quite vicious and elaborate in telling her exactly that. She welcomed criticism, but the level of discontent in the audience was ridiculous.

She sighs, admiring the lines of Kyungsoo’s body as he bends over the stove in calm concentration. He had just been hired by Matsuda and Ide, a huge law firm, the only one that rivaled Hamada Ryoshi’s. He’s not very happy about it though, because everything had to go according to this grand plan that he had, anything else was failure.

“You’re still dressed for work?” She notices, taking the wine he brings her. It was a weird combination with the Kimchi, but she likes it.

Kyungsoo smiles guiltily, “I’m not actually done with work,” he says, “I have to go back now to meet with a source.”

“Oh.” Kimiko pushes food around on her plate, “Is this about the new case again?”

He nods. She usually didn’t ask him about work, but this case seemed to be giving him quite the headache. He wasn’t getting enough sleep either, and Kyungsoo never compromised on that until it was absolutely necessary, it reduced brain function, he said.

“It is,” he says, “I have a lot to do. And I’m sorry, but we will have to cancel the plans we made for the weekend as well.”

“That’s okay, I understand.” Kimiko says, but her disappointment must show because he is looking at her with the chopsticks hovering near his mouth, “Its fine, really!”

Kyungsoo stands up, and the look on his face creates a fluttering in Kimiko’s stomach that momentarily brings her thoughts to a screeching halt. He leans over the table and tips her chin up, kissing her gently.

Their relationship had a slow start, but now that it had finally,  _finally_  taken off, Kimiko had a hard time keeping her feet on the ground. Her job kept her quite busy, but it was her dream come true, people had welcomed her with open arms, and the only thing missing in her life after that was this, and now here it is. It’s like she got everything she ever wanted, right?

Why does that terrify her?

Kyungsoo pulls back and smiles. She smiles too, but her heart is not in it.

He was here constantly these days, much more than when they were just friends. Many of his things were in her house already. They would watch TV shows, listen to music or just talk about things, interesting things, since Kyungsoo was Kyungsoo and anything mundane made his eyes glaze over faster than she could blink. Whenever she was with him, even on the day they met, Kimiko had to keep herself alert and attentive. It was intimidating at first, but soon she found that talking to others was colorless, drab.

Still, in many ways, nothing much had changed. Their relationship was more or less the same, only now, they were having sex too,  _amazing sex,_  and that was all well and good. But still, there was something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, something too unreal about the whole thing. Maybe she was just a little overwhelmed.

“I will make up for it, I promise.”

“Oh,” She waves he hand, “Its fine, I have to submit next week’s manuscripts anyway. I’ll work on the ones after that as well.” They had actually planned something quite elaborate for Sunday. It had been so long since they did anything together. But they are both busy, yes, and she can understand what Kyungsoo felt, he is yet to achieve his dreams.

His phone beeps, he wastes no time in checking it, “I have to be at work immediately,” He says, and before she is even getting a word out, he kisses her on top of her head and rushes out her door, leaving the house feeling quiet, lonely. The sound of her cell phone ringing almost makes her heart stop.

It was an unknown number, “Moshi-Moshi?”

“Um, Kimiko-San?”

“Hai, who is this?” Kimiko is about to dump her plate in the sink, when she notices that it is clean and empty. She had left a mountain of dishes here in the morning. _Kimiko, you lucky bitch…_

“It’s Suzuna, is the meet up cancelled?”

 _Oh crap!_  “Oh yes, no! I mean it’s not cancelled Suzuna, I got held up, I’m on my way.”

“On your way?” Suzuna sound confused, “I thought we were meeting at your house?”

 _Shimatta!_  How could she have forgotten? “Right, right, where are you now?”

“You said you would call me when you got home so I was waiting for your call. It’s okay if you’re busy though.”

“No, no, I’m free now, come on over!”

“That’s nice, and yeah I’m also bringing my brother, who is bringing another person with him, I hope that’s alright.”

Huh? Jongin? No, he couldn’t come along because that’s what she hoped to talk to Suzuna about. The whole manga thing was a fun activity that they both liked, and Kimiko wanted to use that as an excuse to tell her to get the hell away from the yakuza. Jongin probably suspected that and that’s why he was tagging along, that asshole! And who was this other person he was bringing along?  That guy with the green hair?

“Sure, I don’t mind.” She says stonily. The way Suzuna had asked her made it so that Kimiko couldn’t refuse without seeming unreasonably rude.

And so when they do come in, she has to smile and hide the absolute disgust she feels for Jongin. Behind him is a woman of around forty, dressed in a blindingly red, low-cut shirt.

“Kimiko, this is Dr. Shiina Yuki, psychiatrist.”

“ _Ex-_ psychiatrist.” The woman smiles and walks into her house, looking around at everything.  Then she sighs dramatically, and falls into the sofa, propping her heeled feet on the armrest, “Yaah, I’m so tired,” she declares.

“She’s socially impaired.” Jongin shrugs, and walks to the sofa himself, to sit down and pick up a manga that was on the table. He says nothing more and ignores everyone else in the room.

“Shall we go then, Kimiko-San?” Suzuna smiles, pretty and polite as ever. She’s trickier than she seemed. Kimiko smiles at that.

So then, she would just leave these two to hang out by themselves? “Is there anything I can get you?” She asks, addressing the Doctor, and the woman sits up.

“Scotch,” She says, “And oh, does Kyungsoo come here often?” Jongin’s head turns just slightly in her direction.

“She is also inconsiderate of personal boundaries.” He says.

“Yes, of course he does, he’s my boyfriend. Why?”

“Just asking,” The psychiatrist smiles, “He’s a nice chap, isn’t he? Suzuna here told me that you two are together. I was surprised. He doesn’t seem like a relationship kind of guy. But you  _are_  an interesting person, creative, and…different enough, I suppose.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Kimiko says, unsure of what the lady meant, “Let me just get the scotch for you. Suzuna please sit down, we will get to the manga shortly. I have everything prepared.”

“Let me help you with that.” Jongin says, and follows Kimiko into the kitchen, much to her discomfort.

She doesn’t know what to talk to him about and isn’t certain if what he’s doing is a gesture of kindness or if it’s just an excuse to scare her away from talking to Suzuna. Whichever it is, it’s unavoidable.

“The glasses are in the top left cupboard,” she gestures with her thumb, and pulls out her scotch. Such a waste to have to share with these people.

“Oh, you had Kimchi?” He says, pointing to what’s left of it in the pot.

“Hai, would you like some?” She asks him, and he makes a sour face.  Huh, he must really dislike Kimchi. He comes closer and takes the bottle from her hand. He smells of something citrus, it feels kind of familiar.

“I’ll pass,” He says. Kimiko is once again surprised by how kind his eyes are, and how his well… _pretty_  face makes it impossible to believe that he is a lying, manipulating, blackmailing, raping, extortionist Yakuza. “This is good stuff, you sure you want to bring this out? Shiina-San will go through it in seconds.”

“Are all your friends insane?” Kimiko asks, her voice filling with venom before she can help herself, “Do you surround yourself with crazier people to make you feel better about yourself?”

Jongin’s face shows nothing for a second, then he smiles, leaning threateningly close to her. She doesn’t move because she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, “I do,” He says, “So what does that tell you about your Kimchi making Kyungsoo, hmmm?”

“He’s nothing like the lot of you!” She hisses, “You are scum, Jongin. I think people like you deserve to die.”

“Not now!” He says suddenly, to someone behind him. There is nobody there.

Then he turns to Kimiko again quickly, probably realizing that he had startled her. He sighs and then says in a very calm voice, “I don’t give a crap about what you think. I only tolerate you because of my sister, and when she bores of hanging around your face, I’m will erase your existence from my mind. But till then,” he lifts the bottle to his face, “I’m going to drink your scotch.”

“Jongin wait,” Kimiko holds his wrist as he is leaving, this had all gone horribly wrong. “Why do you have to involve her in this? Just-just tell me that…please.” She implores, waiting patiently for him to answer.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t want to.

“Look, I know you find me trustworthy, or you would never have sent your sister here. You  _chose_  to involve me in this, so tell me… maybe you have a good reason, I promise I will try to understand.”

His eyes search hers for something, honesty maybe. She doesn’t know if he finds it. He sighs, shaking his head, “It’s too late now.” He says, “That’s all I can say.”

Kimiko knew his non-answer would be something like that. She lets his wrist go. “Whatever it is, whatever is going to happen, it’s on you Jongin. I really hope your selfishness doesn’t cost her,” she says and goes back to the living room. Jongin follows.

“What kind of manga do you want to write?” Kimiko asks Suzuna as she was adding screentones to some manga frames like she had shown her last time. Jongin looks lost in thought, and Shiina-San is quite fascinated by what they are doing.

“Well, I want to start with something easy like a slice of life manga, and then maybe move on to more complicated things like historical fiction.”

“Wah…sasuga Suzu-chan! I will help you as much as I can,” Kimiko says, she is sure Suzuna can do it. The girl is one of the most imaginative people she’s ever met. They even had discussions about Ansastsu Koi would end, and her theories were really good, most of which Kimiko hadn’t thought of herself.

“I got the habit of reading manga from Ni-San.” She says, “There is always a huge stash in his room. He would buy Shonen Jump before anyone else at school. He would save money for so long, and sometimes when that wasn’t enough, he would steal little bits of my allowance. He’s a huge Otaku even if he doesn’t look like it.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” The Doctor laughs, nudging Jongin playfully, he was distracted by his buzzing phone, “Kimiko-San makes a living off Otaku anyway.”

“Well that’s true.” Kimiko smiles sheepishly, “But they are very loyal, so I try to live up to their expectations. It’s hard to get story ideas sometimes, I feel like everything possible has already been written.”

“You know, sometimes we don’t have to look farther than your own self to find the most interesting things in the world.” The doctor says, “There are so many things happening in our lives that we hardy realize what goes on under the surface, ne Jongin-Kun?”

“My life would be a very boring story,” He says, as he’s standing up, “Suzuna…Gomen.”

“Hai, hai, work again, I know.” Suzuna doesn’t look up at him.

“Shiina-San is going to take you home, if she’s too drunk then call your driver, okay?” Jongin turns to Kimiko. He hesitates a little, but ultimately does a little bow, “Kimiko, arigato. Please teach my sister to be the best she can be. I will see myself out.”

“Fascinating, isn’t he?” Shiina sighs when he’s gone, “He is going to go far.”

“Not too far,” Kimiko says, “for our sake.”

***

Kyungsoo is agitated beyond belief. If anyone asks him why, he wouldn’t have an answer because he doesn’t know himself. And Jongin, the little bastard, is only making things worse by making him wait. Here. In this place, with its loud music and overly scented air. If he has to spend one more second here, he would kill someone.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Kyungsoo hides the relief he feels on hearing that voice, “Thoroughly.”

Jongin slides into Kyungsoo’s the couch, exuding enough sensuality to put all the strippers around them to shame. He does it while looking completely disinterested in the whole thing. It’s quite mesmerizing. Kyungsoo notices he is wearing his good suit. The one that fits him like a very well-tailored glove. So, he must have had something important to attend to today. Excellent.

“You’re all dressed up,” he smiles, “for  _me_.”

The young Yakuza folds his legs into a mediating position and leans back into the couch, resting his head on the back of it. Kyungsoo’s eyes trail along the pale column of his neck till it’s cut off by the white of his shirt.

“I just met your girlfriend and the pathetic slop that you call Korean food.”

What?

Kyungsoo at once feels really,  _really_  nervous. He is sure he looks it as well. His fingers go cold, and he’s breathing too fast. Thankfully, Jongin’s attention is elsewhere. He clears his throat, suddenly thankful for the noise and dim lighting.

“Why were you there?” He asks, as casually as possible. Kyungsoo has stuff there that Jongin can never see. The location of said stuff would have to be changed based on the content of his answer.

Jongin calls a waiter over. He is dressed as a samurai, for whatever reason. “Suzuna wanted to meet her and she dragged me along.”

Thank fuck! Well that seems benign enough, “Ah yes, they are getting along quite well.”

“Mizo, onegaishimas.” Jongin tells the waiter, and he is only too happy to do his bidding. “Hmmm, Shiina-San wanted to meet her as well, so I thought I might as well stab two idiots with one Katana.”

Shiina? “Why does she want to meet Kimiko? How does she even know of her?” Did Jongin speak to her about them? If he did, it meant that he was as affected by the act as Kyungsoo had intended. This would make things so much easier.

“She has an interest in you, apparently. And she keeps up to date with what you do.” He sits up straighter when the waiter brings him the water, “There isn’t much you can do to get rid of her.”

“I told you I don’t want your yakuza buddies interfering with my life,” Kyungsoo waves away one of the dancers that had come to stand next to them, but the leather clad idiot looks to Jongin and leaves only when he tells him to. It irritates Kyungsoo to be undermined like that. “Why are we here anyway? I don’t like having to shout everything to you, not to mention, I’m going to smell like a hooker for a week.”

“Relax, it’s one of my new clubs, I had to see how things are going. We are expanding you see.” Jongin smiles, he’s proud.

“Into the strip club business?” Kyungsoo asks, “Weren’t you already in it?”

“Not in this sense. I’ll explain it to you some other time.” Jongin says, “For now, let’s focus on what you wanted to consult with me about. You mentioned prostitution?”

“Yeah. I’ll get to that.” Kyungsoo pulls up the case files on his tab. It’s a tough one, and he doesn’t _really_ want to defend this guy, but the case would bring the firm a lot of publicity. Also, it’s a case that indirectly involves the Yakuza; he would never miss out on those.

“So, this guy…” He turns the tablet to show Jongin the picture of a middle-aged man, “…is a pedophile, who was accused of seeking to have intercourse with this child…” He turns the tablet again to show a picture of a smiling little girl, “…she is around seven years old.”

Kyungsoo had expected the lack of evident disgust on Jongin’s face, “And you’re defending this sicko?”

“He’s the plaintiff.”

“Ho?” His eyebrows rise slightly in interest, “Elaborate.”

“The defendant is this maid café called  _Angel Sama._  This guy has accused them of blackmail and extortion. Well, they were blackmailing him with footage of attempted intercourse with this girl. But he claims she coerced him, and I know there is more to this than meets the eye.”

“And you want me to tell you how these things work so that you can kill one of our most lucrative businesses?” Jongin rests the side of his head on his hand, “What do I get out of it?”

“The joy of pleasing me?”

Jongin laughs, “Not happening, Kyungsoo-San.”

“Well I am trying to get it settled out of court. And it’s not going to harm you if nobody knows the yakuza are involved. Only the clubs themselves will be directly responsible, I’m sure you would have taken measures to ensure the trail doesn’t lead back to you anyhow.”

Jongin worries his lip with his thumb, “I’m second in command now,” He says casually, “There was a whole meeting and a bunch of proposals and stuff, so it’s kind of official. Didn’t I tell you that?”

Kyungsoo has no idea what to say to that. “No, you neglected to inform me of this.”

“Okinawa is now under my control. Soon, Tokyo will be too.”

The words send a rush adrenaline racing through Kyungsoo’s blood. This was… _great_. He takes a sip of Jongin’s water to hide the extent of his happiness. If he wasn’t a man of extreme self-control, he would have jumped Jongin right there. But Jongin must not know of this, so he schools his features into righteous disgust and says, “And you are proud of this?”

Jongin doesn’t react, and that tells Kyungsoo more about his mental state than any number of words ever could. He is unhappy. Kyungsoo doesn’t understand why. This is what he wanted, right?

The young yakuza stands up abruptly, “This place is too noisy.” He says and walks away. Kyungsoo scrambles to follow him. A couple of men come running to ask him why he was leaving, he smiles and tells them they were doing well, women hug him and touch him unnecessarily, it but he remains gracious throughout.

The cold air of the street greets them like a refreshing slap in the face. Just like the drops of rain that decide to descend upon them one by one. The dim street lights make Jongin’s eyes look restless and frantic with their flickering, Kyungsoo wants to make it go away.

“My apartment is right here.” He finds himself saying, “It’s a lot quieter.”

Soon, they are in Kyungsoo’s car and Jongin is staring at the blurry image of the city through the window. “Japan has a strict anti-prostitution law, as you know.” He says, “That means you are not allowed to have sex with people for money, but you can do pretty much everything else with them. And there are more than a few establishments that allow for that. But suppose you want to go all the way, what options do you have?” His head makes a dull thud on the glass as he rests it there, “How do you get around the laws?”

“By hiding?”

“Tch, Tch, No. They do that by pretending that the customer isn’t a customer at all.” He says, “Instead, they are called blind dates. So, if they do end up having sex with each other, they do so ‘as a couple’ which is perfectly legal.”

That was clever. Clever and wrong. Encouraging people into a crime and then condemning them for giving in, no, exploiting them…

“Kyungsoo-Kun is judging what I am saying.”

“No, he’s- _I_  am not.” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes.

“Hmmm.”

“Would you stop that?” Kyungsoo found it extremely vexing when Jongin got in this frame of mind. Or more accurately, when he  _revealed_  he was in this frame of mind. Right now, he was an observer looking at Kyungsoo through a magnifying glass that amplified every little spark his neurons made as thoughts passed his mind. And while this kind of scrutiny is flattering in a way, it’s a pain when he’s not made aware of the conclusions Jongin reaches.

Choclate eyes reattach themselves to the view outside the window and he doesn’t say anything more.

“For fuck’s sake… _What_ is on your mind?”

“Your sense of morality is extremely screwed up. You judge people as right and wrong according to how it affects you,” he actually smirks, “You look down on the world from the highest of moral high horses.”

Kyungsoo scoffs at the assessment, he thinks he was morally right because he is, in fact, morally right. Always. “And what do you have to say about the fact that I’m defending a pedophile?”

“Against what Kyungsoo-Kun-” Jongin begins, the other throws him a nasty look, “against what  _you_ think is a greater evil.”

“It’s a job. I have to take cases like this to get ahead; otherwise I will never make it to the top, where I will be capable of making a real difference. I may turn thing into a class action suit, so there is no way I’m going to let it go.”

Jongin loses interest in what he is saying, “We’ve struck deals with a couple of these establishments in and around Kabukicho. These are places that cater to all kinds of needs and ensure complete confidentiality to. This includes a whole host of strange, sordid and perverted preferences, such as Loli-Con, Shota-Con, and Cross-dressing, all things that are done best with children.”

Kyungsoo chooses not to comment on that. It was best to let Jongin continue uninterrupted; stopping him always led to deflections and a loss of valuable information.

“They are there on a voluntary basis of course, and their daily task is to attract such customers to these establishments. You know, get them up to the room,  _after_  they make a hefty payment, sometimes before. Here they would make eyes at them, just talk to them, bring them food or have them help with their actual homework while the owners of the establishment record it all. And if they begin to get handsy, which they always do, the kids just have to wait for the adult women to come scream ‘ _heeeentaaai!’_ and have them taken away.”

“After that, it’s all a simple matter of blackmailing them with the recordings and have them pay you not to release them,” Kyungsoo supplies. It was an elegant scheme. And his client, the idiotic man, fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Jongin nods, “We get a share of this money, a small percentage also goes to the brothels or the Host clubs, but the kid keeps most of it.”

“What would the kid even do with it?”

“Most of them are orphans or street kids who don’t have other options, they want to enroll in the Yakuza, but we can’t seem like we take in kids that are too young. And this is how we make sure they have food on their plates.” The way Jongin said it seemed like he had heard million times before and he was just parroting it back. They had reached the apartment building.

“It is as underhanded as anything else you and your people do, I guess.” Kyungsoo says, sounding bitter as he felt, pulling into the basement parking area.

“What?” Jongin laughs, apparently amused by his hostility, “I thought you would be happy that we are indirectly punishing creepy pedophiles.”

“No, you’re just hunting any prey you can find.” Kyungsoo waits for Jongin to get out of the car too, and they head for the elevator that held countless memories and more than a few scratches thanks to them. “Screwing a few ‘bad’ people over doesn’t change what you do to countless innocent ones.” He presses the button to his floor a lot harder than necessary because he has nowhere to direct his sudden anger, “It just adds to the already endless list of despicable things you do.” He sends an especially fiery glare in Jongin’s general direction. But the latter just shrugs.

“Don’t pretend you aren’t aware of this.”

“Of course, I’m aware it. And I’m okay with it too.” Jongin has the audacity to say.

“Oh yes, yes you are, doing the Oyabun’s bidding gets you off.” Kyungsoo says acidly, “How could I forget.”

“You’re just amazing, you know? How could you be so blind to your own hypocrisy?” The young Yakuza says, “Why did you even bring me here anyway? What are you even _doing_?”

The second question extends beyond this particular conversation, it refers to Kimiko. Well, he would have to come and say it if he wanted Kyungsoo to acknowledge his problems.

“Now you’re asking me to state the obvious.” Kyungsoo says, the doors open to his floor and he steps out. He had expected the younger to follow, but he was still standing in the elevator. And he looks angry, which is a rare thing to behold. Kyungsoo wedges his foot between the closing doors.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home.”

Kyungsoo chuckles, “No you’re not.”

Jongin sneers at him and pushes him back and away from the doors, but Kyungsoo holds them open to hit the stop button. He strides into Jongin’s personal space, backing him up against the wall till their bodies are pressed against each other. Jongin is so angry that Kyungsoo can feel the coiled tension in his muscles, he shoves him back violently.

That never stopped him until now, but then Jongin was never this mad before either.

“What’s wrong?” Come on, ask me about Kimiko, I know you want to, say you’re jealous, say it.

But he won’t. It was too great a blow to his pride. Kyungsoo can almost see the internal battle behind those ridiculously clear eyes. To give in or not? He walks the two steps required to close the gap between them again.

“Fine then,” Kyungsoo’s eyes drop to the pale pink lips that part subconsciously for him, “Go home.” He says, and covers Jongin’s mouth with his own, tasting scotch, _his_ scotch, that he must have just shared with Kimiko. It makes Kyungsoo smile.

His attempts at resistance were admirable, but he is soon kissing back, all teeth, tongue, ferocity, and just  _Jongin_. Kyungsoo tips the younger’s head back, deepening the kiss, and then he pulls away.

They stare at each other breathless, moving closer once more as if drawn by gravity. But Kyungsoo backs away and hits the red button again.

Kyungsoo had given Jongin permission, and in doing so had taken the power out of Jongin’s decision to leave. He wordlessly heads to his apartment.

He is only able to get the door open when he hears, “I think I hate you,” from a voice that was supposed to be downstairs by now.

“I’m okay with that.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t hide his smirk when he pushes the door closed with the yakuza’s back against it, nor does he hold back because it’s been too fucking long. His lips devour the other’s in a bruising kiss. He savors the sweetness, the sound of his soft moans, and the feel of stinging electricity.

Hands work without needing instruction from his brain to rid the younger of his pesky shirt. Jongin is less cautious and rips his way through to Kyungsoo’s bare skin. They leave a trail of clothing as they reach the bed, the darkness proving no problem. And once on it, Kyungsoo takes a moment to appreciate the panting-lean body under his, and the stark contrast between his hair and the white of the sheets, or the red of blood on his lips, the endless expanse of golden, beautiful skin.

He can’t stare too long because Jongin leans up to him and captures his lips once again, hips pressing against his in desperation. That’s what he was always like, resistance at first, and then abandon. He pulls him up so he’s on his lap, grinding shamelessly, just the way Kyungsoo likes it. He captures a nipple between his teeth and the younger’s hiss of pain sends a jolt straight to the center of his being. He leaves a hot trail of kisses along his jaw and bites down on his ear, pulling another choked moan.

Kyungsoo couldn’t take it anymore. He reaches for the lube he kept in his drawer as Jongin suckled at his neck. He hums in contentment till a sharp stab of pain makes him drop the bottle. He yanks Jongin back by his hair and touches the side of his neck to find blood there, and depressions of teeth. The bastard. He had made a mark for Kimiko to find.

He says nothing, pushes Jongin onto the bed as he straddles him, and takes off his tie, “Turn around.”

The young yakuza smirks defiantly. That earns him a hard smack on his face. It whips his head to the side and a red welt soon blooms beautifully on his cheek. He stares at Kyungsoo, gritting his teeth and looking absolutely rabid with desire.

“Turn. Around.”

He obeys this time, eagerly. Kyungsoo ties the fabric around his eyes and turns his face to the side to give him a particularly savage kiss. Then he lifts the Yakuza’s hips, so his knees are under him, and with his other hand trails the pattern of Sakura on his back. Jongin is jittery, having lost the luxury of vision and jerks when Kyungsoo mouths at his shoulder, and then along his spine, leaving a cold trail on fevered skin.

He gets even more nervous and searches with sightless eyes when Kyungsoo moves away from him momentarily, but he is good and keeps still as Kyungsoo slips something cold and metallic on to his need, till it fits snugly at the base. Jongin soon realizes what it is and hurriedly reaches to get the ring off.

“Ah ah ah…” Kyungsoo grabs his wrists and fastens his arms above his head with a belt, “You will only make things worse for yourself.” he says as he pushes his way into the welcoming heat of his body without warning. Jongin gives out a cry at the intrusion, he would get no preparation after what he did, “Make another noise…I-dare you.”

He tries not to, he really does, but he was always the noisy kind and a few moans escape his lips every now and then, for which he is punished by not having any hands where he so desperately wants them. Kyungsoo watches his fingers dig into the skin of his hips as he forced Jongin’s body to his shape, while the latter’s fingers claw at the mattress for purchase they wouldn’t find for how he was being lifted up and driven into. He is beautiful like this, helpless and at Kyungsoo’s mercy, tough and pliable at the same time, rejecting him and pulling him in at once,  _oh_  how he had missed this.

“Soo-” Jongin’s clipped voice manages between incoherent sounds.

Kyungsoo knows what he wants, he was deliberately avoiding the one spot he knew Jongin was desperate to feel him in, and Jongin knew what he had to do to get it. It was only a matter of time before he gave in. He reaches forward and gives a tempting squeeze that makes him push against Kyungsoo in the most amazing way.

“Plea-” Jongin begins.

“What was that?”

He doesn’t say it, and tries to push back against him again, but Kyungsoo has the upper hand and pushes his hips down.

“I said please, you _bastard_!” He growls, and Kyungsoo laughs. The younger fears he is going to get punished again, but since Kyungsoo was feeling kind, he turns him around and pulls him in for a kiss. Jongin is quick to react and hooks his bound hands around Kyungsoo’s neck and kisses him back with equal fervor, so he obliges him and changes the angle to hit the spot that he was aching for.

Just one movement of his hips rips a moan from Jongin that was probably the lewdest sound Kyungsoo’s ever heard. Fingers claw possessively at his back and threaten to rip the hair out of his scalp. So, he takes aim hits the spot again and again and again, till the younger’s grip on him loosens, back arching more and more in ecstasy, his brown eyes scrunch behind a navy tie and his mouth opens in a voiceless scream as his body coils tighter and tighter around Kyungsoo.

The sight of him, all desperate and begging, just the sight, would be enough to undo Kyungsoo, He is so beautiful. And he’s all his. His rhythm is starting to go off now, he was close.

Kyungsoo’s hand finally closes around where Jongin needed to be touched most, freeing him from the constricting band of metal, he cries out at the feeling, and within a few precise tugs, he was over the edge and far gone, a dead weight in Kyungsoo’s arms, drawing him into oblivion as the blinding luminescence floods his senses and reduces him to nothing and elevates him to everything at once.

***

 

He looks harmless when he sleeps, harmless and agitated, like his mind knew what was happening while his eyes were closed. Kyungsoo sits in his balcony looking in, the rain hasn’t died down yet, and it muffles the sound of the dial tone.

“Hai, Kyungsoo?”

 “He is second in command.” Stray rain drops sting his back.

“ _The boy?_  You sure?”

“Now would be the time to track his movements. He is going to be a problem.”

“Son of a bitch sure knows how to cover his tracks!” The voice on the other end laughs, “We never even suspected he would be the one.”

“Don’t make any moves until I say so.”

Silence. “I’ve been doing this far longer than you.”

Kyungsoo pinches the bridge of his nose, “He works differently from the previous ones.”

“Thank you for the update.” The voice says, “Goodnight..”

Kyungsoo says nothing. He’s different from everyone else.

****

 


	13. Freud's field day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments! Here's an update!!

His lips met warm shivering skin, and the body under his squirmed against the intensity. All he could feel was warmth, a dizzying, delirious heat that invaded every part of his body. His mouth trailed the sharp contour of a hip, trailing lower and brown eyes scrunch closed in anticipation.

“ _Ask me_ …” Kyungsoo breathes, “ _Beg_   _me_.”

Suddenly they are somewhere else, and he watches himself from a distance. He looks so focused as he works on a bruise with his teeth till its red against the paleness, and then he soothes it with a kiss.

Oh, the sounds the other makes, so frantic, so delicious.

Wait, wasn’t Kyungsoo over there by the window? How is he seeing himself? Kyungsoo doesn’t have time to figure it out, because he’s too busy being knocked down by the twisting rush of arousal in his gut. The other him turns to look him in the eye for a second, and he smiles, triumphant, as he presses the boy against the glass, and Kyungsoo smiles back.

So long he had waited for this…

“Kyungsoo!”

Kyungsoo’s eyes snap open and he takes a second to register his surroundings. He is in his room, still in his uniform and covered in sweat. His own breathing sounds too loud in his head, when had he fallen asleep?

“Kyungsoo? It’s time for dinner.”

“I-I’ll be right there.”

What the hell? This was too much. He has never been so out of his head before. This is starting to get embarrassing. He peels his sticky shirt off, throwing it aside and cringes when he realizes his “situation” wasn’t going to go away. It makes him furious, how dare someone have the power to affect him this way? This is unacceptable. He isn’t going to give in to his body like the rest of his animal peers.

A cold shower is in order.

_Heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual, bisexual, polysexual, asexual…_  The list went on and on. Why are there so many? And where exactly does he fit in all this? Kyungsoo resists the shiver when cold water runs down his body, it soothes his burning skin.

_Jongin…_

Ever since the day of the festival, ever since the day he saw them in that classroom in fact, all he can think about is that wretched, immoral bastard. The Yakuza…Oh how he  _hates_  them.

This is all Jongin’s fault. He had spent the entirety of the day hanging around Kyungsoo with that stupid lollipop in his mouth. What kind of high schooler even ate lollipops anyway? He was doing it in order to rile Kyungsoo up, there was no doubt it, but to what end though? Just to amuse himself? Ha! Kyungsoo wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

His fingers work through his hair, and with the water, it helps take the edge off his headache, maybe he was coming down with something.

“Kyungsoo, come on down, we have cake! I bought cake!”

“Be right there…”

Looks like his father was home as well.  Kyungsoo dries himself off and picks his discarded uniform up off the floor and folds it before placing it in the laundry hamper. The white T shirt he has on is a welcome change, and he feels the stress of the day leave his body a little.

School had become a stifling building of torture lately. And that was a very distressing thing for Kyungsoo to experience because school was his kingdom, where he felt in control and on top of things. He was the best at everything, rivaled by no one else, until now. The others noticed it too…

_“Thank god you two aren’t in the same class Kyungsoo-Kun, the others would die of their feelings of inadequacy…”_

_“Kyungsoo! I notice that Kim guy look at you a lot, I think he admires you…”_

_“…He may even be smarter than Kyungsoo-Kun…”_

It seems wherever he looks, whichever corner he turns to, there Jongin is. He is distracting, and the fact that Kyungsoo has been having increasingly graphic dreams is not making things any better. They would replay in his mind at the exact moment he set eyes on Jongin, in  _excruciating detail_. And the bastard knows, he  _knows_  what Kyungsoo was thinking and it made it that much more infuriating.

But that is not all either, it’s not just his appearance, no, it’s more. He is the first person Kyungsoo met that doesn’t give a crap about Kyungsoo’s achievements, or his looks. His eyes don’t glaze over in adoration or lack of understanding when Kyungsoo speaks, he is able to keep up with him. He not only plays at Kyungsoo’s level, but challenges him as well, and provokes him. His smiles say they recognize the real Kyungsoo, what’s under the shiny exterior and the politeness.

Jongin is the same as Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo knows this because he could see them in him too, the pretenses. The slight strain in his dazzling laugh, the occasional pensive looks that say he wanted to be anywhere but there, the longing in his eyes for someone who was an equal, for someone who sees the world for what it really is. For someone like Kyungsoo.

But he was Yakuza… he was Yakuza. He was despicable. And Kyungsoo was not, he had his morals.

_Doesn’t mean you can’t screw him_ , says an unhelpful voice in his head,  _repeatedly and over various surfaces._

Kyungsoo groans in a very un-Kyungsoo like fashion. Were his hormones really going to get the better of him? He had expected such things when he reached adolescence, but after a few years of nothing, he was convinced that these feelings were beneath him and affected only his un-evolved peers. But maybe they weren’t after all.

He is quite sure he isn’t homosexual; he has never felt physically attracted to males. Then again, he feels no such attraction to females either. He was only ever attracted, if one could call it that, to this…this criminal. Would the feelings be stronger if said male possessed female secondary sexual characteristics? No. Are they enhanced by his lack of them? Also no.

In fact, Kyungsoo finds on further thought, that he would find Jongin fascinating, even if he was a sentient Lamp Post. So, what does that say about him? He has no idea.

***

“Oya, you look so tired these days Soo, have you been overworking yourself at school? I told you not to join the organizational committee, that’s too much work.”

“Its fine, Omma.” he pushes food into his mouth, hardly tasting it, chew, chew, use it as an excuse not to elaborate. There is silence at the table again, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Soo, are you still mad at me?” She asks, Kyungsoo doesn’t answer.

She gets pissed off, she stands up, and when Kyungsoo refuses to look at her still, she throws her chopsticks on the table in fury and leaves. Her dinner is untouched.

Kyungsoo doesn’t give a damn, and he can’t be bothered to feign concern. But he feels his father’s eyes on him, so he looks up.

“Kyungsoo.”

“Yes?” He smiles, overly sweet.

Do doesn’t find it amusing, “I do not understand what goes on in your mind son,” he says, “And I’m not going to ask because I know you wouldn’t tell me the truth.”

Okay…That was unexpected.

“But take my advice and treat your mother better. She deserves it.”

“I treat her perfectly fine!” Kyungsoo snaps, then leans back in his chair and sighs, “I mean, the few times she is home, she keeps accusing me of things I never even do, I have been tolerating it for years now and I’m about to reach the limit of my patience.”

For some reason, his mother had made it her life’s purpose to constantly ask him if he was having “bad thoughts” whatever that meant. She had been asking him those questions since that incident at school when he was eight years old or so, and he had been too young to realize she was being unreasonable and had spent years monitoring his thinking, paranoid he would think something bad. And of course, that only made the worst possible scenario about everything pop into his mind at all times of day, he wasn’t able to deal with the guilt it caused him either.

He used to be quite afraid of her when he was younger, and of water after she pushed him into a lake.

_“Swim.”_  She had said, as she stood on the bank while he was choking and begging her for help,  _“You’re_   _smart, aren’t you? So, Swim.”_

Fortunately, someone had assumed they were in trouble and jumped in to save him. His mother had offered him her profound thanks and even some money that the man had politely refused.

Kyungsoo had learned three things that day. To lie, to swim, and that his mother was fucking insane.

Then there was the time she had asked some of his friends’ parents to keep their kids away from him. He was horrified when one of them was kind enough to inform him of this. He had confronted her about it, and she simply stated that Kyungsoo was unsuited for other children’s company.

And that was just one of many examples. The irrationality of her actions hadn’t been clear to him back then. He had just believed her, he didn’t really miss the company, so it wasn’t that bad, but it had deeply affected his opinion of himself and Kyungsoo was afraid he would never get over it.

His father did not know about it because he was too busy pursuing dead leads and trying to get back into the force.

“You know that I don’t have a job yet, and you know how hard she works, so she gets a little stressed sometimes and that’s okay. Please, be more patient with her.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t answer.

Do sighs, “Fine, I said what I had to say, you’re more than capable of dealing with this on your own, but my conscience would not leave me in peace if I didn’t say at least something.” He leaves the table.

Kyungsoo looks dejectedly at the mismatched dinner plates and glasses, and the chair his father had to drag in from the living room because they couldn’t afford to replace the one that was broken. He puts his mother’s dinner in the fridge in case she got hungry later. She would have to eat something before leaving for the night shift. The other dishes he washes like he did every day.

The heating wasn’t working properly; they had to get that fixed before winter, so he had given up his plans to buy a better laptop for his school work. He walked to and from school and rarely took the train, so he could save even that expense, but the house was old and falling apart, and they had no money for repairs. They had no money for anything.

And it was the Yakuza’s fault.

Kyungsoo trudges up to his bedroom slowly, the light under his parent’s bedroom was off, he stands there for a minute, listening for any talk about what had happened, but there is only silence. So, he goes to his own room and falls on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, wondering what he could do to make things better.

“Kyungsoo?”

Kyungsoo jerks back up at the sound of the voice. It was his father.

“Yes?” Why was he here? Please let it not be about his mother again.

“Well, there was actually something I wanted to talk to you about. I kept trying to convince myself not to do this, but I think I should let you hear it and decide for yourself.”

“…Okay, what is it?”

“Come with me. This story, this explanation is long overdue.”

Kyungsoo follows him downstairs, and his father takes the key he always kept to his office, hidden under the vase.

“Do you remember that day?” He asks, as he opens the door and walks inside. His father had shown him this room only once, and that too to tell him that nobody was allowed to enter it under any circumstances.

“Some of it.”

His father laughs, and brings two glasses out from the cupboard, along with a bottle of whiskey. Kyungsoo had seen his father drink only once before, the night before the incident happened. It was never a good sign, neither was the general air of discomfort and shiftiness he was displaying. Kyungsoo is on high alert.

“Of course, you remember, you never forget anything Kyungsoo,” he says, pouring himself a glass, “You are so smart,” he says, looking at his son with a mix of disbelief and pride, “…so smart.”

Kyungsoo comes to stand in front a wall plastered with articles about the Yakuza. The money that they made, the people that they screwed over, the families they destroyed. His father had meticulously tracked every little thing they did. He stuck a thumb pin in one of the cutouts that had come loose.

“It had all started when I, in all my youthful idiocy decided to rid the world of the Yakuza.” Do begins, heaving a deep sigh and running his hand through his mostly grey hair, “You know how it is, they rape, they kill, blackmail, then waltz in to our offices, chat with the officers, and take their buddies out of jail and do whatever they want.”

Yes, they do. But this happened because the government allowed it to. And anyone who wants to stop them must get to the top first. But as things stand, it is impossible to ascend to such influence without dirtying your hands with the Yakuza in the first place, a perfect system.

He goes to stand by the table his father was sitting behind and picks up the small snake shaped paperweight. His father pours another glass and pushes it toward Kyungsoo. Surprising, to say the least. He sits down but doesn’t take it.

“I didn’t pay much attention to it in the beginning; I was busy with work and too low in the ladder to really be able to do anything. But then something happened…”

Do takes a gulp of his whiskey, and then clears his throat. It was difficult for him to speak about this, he had probably not told another soul, certainly not Oka-San. But why was he doing this all of a sudden today? What had set this off?

“I had a friend, Hirota Naoki.” He smiles a little, “He was like a brother and I loved with all my heart.” He says, “I would do anything for him. But he fell into hard times, and despite my best attempts to dissuade him from it, he took money from the local Yakuza boss and the decision that ruined his life.

“They squeezed the life out of him, Kyungsoo. And the cruelest thing they did was leave him alive after that.” Do wipes a tear from his eye with a little laugh and gets off his chair to stand near the window, “He was such a happy person, so carefree and bright. But what they left of him was a cold and empty shell, the ghost of the Naoki I knew. The stories are cliché, but they are true. They don’t kill you, they just kill everyone you ever spoke to, everyone you ever held dear and there is nothing you can do about it.”

He turns to look at Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo distractedly takes a sip of his whiskey, he has to shift his features into sympathy instead of shameless curiosity.

“Naoki came to headquarters that day, he looked terrible. Like he hadn’t slept in years and had barely anything to eat. He fell at my feet in tears. He said nothing, but I understood, and we left immediately. It was too late.

“What we saw that day was the body of his newborn, and his  _wife_ …” his father’s voice wavers, “Haruhi was her name. The bastards had stuck a bill of what he owed them across her…” He shakes his head, he can’t say it.

Kyungsoo gets the picture.

“He killed himself later that year.” He says, “There was nothing I could to help him, he couldn’t approach the police, my own precinct refused to file his complaint. The moment they heard ‘Yakuza’ they turned a blind eye. No one helped him, and he died.”

“So, you plotted to take them down.” And it backfired.

“I did. It wasn’t easy, but I and two other likeminded officers put together a plan. We had contacted a couple in Tokyo who supplied the Yakuza arms, drugs and acted as one of their links to Europe. We documented their activities day in and day out for months and months, and eventually we had enough to put them in prison forever. But we didn’t, because you see, the deal with the Yakuza is that-”

“-A known variable is better than an unknown one,” Kyungsoo supplies.

“…Yes, if we caught them, the Yakuza would hide their activity and get a new source that would take another few months or even a year to track down and catch. So, we struck a deal with them. They would be our informants and we would let them continue their operations. It went slow for a while, till eventually we had a whole network of these informants. I’m not proud of it… we used some questionable methods to do this, but we got the information, and we used it to disrupt the Yakuza activity as much as possible.

“Naturally, they soon got suspicious,” He says, “And began hiding their work from the police, trying to see where the information was being leaked from, and when that did not work anymore, they began threatening us. But the force on the other hand, were growing more and more confident, public opinion about our ability to keep Japan safe improved and things were looking up. The Oyabun’s counselor even came to the chief’s office on his own to demand this ‘dishonorable work’ be stopped immediately.”

“Then what went wrong?” Kyungsoo asks, quite amazed by how much his father had accomplished, one would never guess if they went by his cheery face.

“The Oyabun changed.”

_Oh_.

“She changed everything. And she started from the very top. With just her first move, she had us scrambling. She did this thing where she sent false information to all her various sources, a basic tactic. But we are all so overconfident with our minuscule success that we didn’t expect it. And after just  _one_  such incident where the police showed up in one of the false drop points that she had let flow into our information network, she had narrowed down our most important informants, and had them killed.”

“So, who were the people who came to our house that day?”

“The Oyabun’s men,” Do says, filling Kyungsoo’s empty glass, “You may want to slow down son.”

Kyungsoo shrugs, he felt fine. “I remember seeing their _Mon_. One of the men had it on his jacket.” Do nods.

He had just come back from school, his mother was away at work, and the door was unlocked. When he stepped inside, he found three men beating his father to a pulp. He had idiotically run toward them in an effort to help him, but ended up being caught himself, and held at gunpoint while his father was forced to reveal secret information about his operations and effectively undo years of effort. He was so stupid back then,  _so stupid_.

“Not that I’m not happy to hear about this, Appa,” Better to cut to the chase, the memories were becoming uncomfortable, “but why are you telling me this?”

“Well son,” His father runs his hand through his hand again, “How would you like to aid in bringing these bastards down?”

What? “What?”

“You agree that these people bad for Japan, yes? And they specifically target Zainichi Koreans in their recruitment? They need to be stopped.” His father walks toward him and holds Kyungsoo by the shoulders, “You realize that I lost everything that day, don’t you? All my credibility, my job, any chance I had of  _ever_  avenging my friend?”

“Yes, but I-”

“I have lost faith in myself and I won’t get it back unless I bring them down, I can’t live like this anymore, I’m not meant to be working at the supermarket! It’s been six years already, I  _have_  to earn my shot again and for that I must bring back something useful, all my paths to information except one are blocked, but I must bring them down Kyungsoo, do you understand?”

Kyungsoo is uncomfortable with what is happening. He agrees with his father, but he couldn’t see how a sixteen-year old could possibly help him. And besides, his father had been asked to turn in his badge, so he had no business pursuing this. Kyungsoo had seen him spend day and night researching the Yakuza. He had failed three times already; would he never learn?

“Appa please, I think you should-”

“Yamakichi Kai,” Do says, shaking Kyungsoo, “Yamakichi Kai!”

Kyungsoo quiets, his heart beats louder for some reason. Was his father referring to who he thought he was referring to? “…Who’s that?”

“ _Kim Jongin_ , that’s the name he uses. He is the son of the Oyabun! She tried her damndest to hide it, but he is her son, I found out. And he goes to your school, one year behind you.”

So, he was right, “And you want me to do what?”

“Nothing,” His father says, “I just want you to befriend him, that’s all.”

“Don’t you think they will trace my relations to you?” Kyungsoo asks.

“They won’t, because the ones that targeted me are already dead. Two of them were killed in a gang fight in Osaka. I was a small-time cop, and they had attacked several police officers back then and I wouldn’t particularly stand out.”

“But what will I achieve by befriending him?” He pushes away from his father, so he was implying that… “Wait, you want me to be an informant, don’t you?”

Do looks away guiltily and says nothing. That was answer enough.

Kyungsoo’s mind is racing now, running at a break neck pace. It was dangerous, and any stupid moves on his part would spell serious trouble, but it was possible. If there was anyone suited for a job like this, it was Kyungsoo.

There Jongin was, living his life in ridiculous exuberance. While it made Kyungsoo want to tear him down, to stamp his face to the ground and make him feel what it was like to actually slog for what you wanted to have. He never even had to work at school, he just breezed through everything, matching Kyungsoo at every step.

He would bring him to his knees now… he would bring the  _Yakuza_  to their knees, he would make them all pay on behalf of those that suffered, he would do it for the years his father had lost, for his friend. And he would start with Jongin.

 

 


	14. Guns and Posers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we have a new member in this chapter! Tell me what you guys think.

Shiina Yuuki was a simple person. She had very simple tastes and didn’t demand much from life, and that’s probably why she got what she wanted whenever she asked for it. Good Karma and all that.

“Can you tell me what day it is?” She asks.

“Friday.”

“Close. It’s Tuesday.”

She flashes a torch light in his eyes, and then turns it off, the brown of his irises retreating madly to the corners. They keep flicking to some invisible thing that only he could see. Whatever it was, it was distressing to him, that much is obvious. The apparition that reveales itself only to you, what is it doing? What does it look like? What does it tell you to do?

Dark circles had purpled the smooth skin under his eyes. There was mild lack of coordination, his reactions to things were delayed by a few seconds and he was even more resistant to pain than usual.

_Sleep deprivation_.

“Who’s keeping you up at night?” She smirks, tapping is chin with the torch. He pushes her hand away, shooting up to his feet. Bad idea, because he gets really dizzy and almost falls on his pretty little butt.

That head injury needed some more examination. Shiina crouches next to him, pushing his hair out of his face, “Jongin, now that you’re done acting all tough, you wanna tell me what happened?”

“Just do what you have to do Shiina, your antics are getting on my nerves.” A voice grinds out from the other corner of the room.

“I am just  _helping_  him, Kyungsoo-Kun. You know, that thing that you didn’t do this morning?”

Kyungsoo opens his mouth to say something, but snaps it shut again. Oh? He looks genuinely disgusted with himself. Interesting.

It had been around two months since Shiina had been to Kimiko’s house. And the whole experience had been an enlightening one for her. Kyungsoo looked all settled and comfortable in his life, and she had expected him to try and reduce his interactions with Jongin because of it. Jongin had been expecting it too, she had seen it in his eyes. But it seemed it had changed nothing between them, at least from Kyungsoo’s point of view, and for someone so convinced of their moral superiority, that seemed really,  _really_  wrong.

“Did you call you the cleanup crew?”

Jongin nods.

“Two bodies?”

“Seven.”

Shiina knew that. But she wanted to see if Jongin felt any guilt admitting it. He didn’t. The way he said it was matter of fact, like it was video game he just slaughtered people in and not real life.

Now, _Kyungsoo’s_ reaction…wide eyes blind to things in front of him, helpless against the replays his mind was feeding him of the attack, tremors, sweating and mild shock. Those are reactions of someone unaccustomed to bloodshed.

Jongin slumps into her chest suddenly, his pained groan reverberating through her ribs. He’s bordering on unconsciousness again. Shiina hugs him.

“You’ll be alright my pretty,” She hums near his ear, “Kyungsoo-Kun, I need you to make sure he doesn’t sleep till I get that scan done. Can you manage that?”

“He never sleeps,” he sighs, coming to them to pull Jongin up very carefully, “Should he be going back home today?”

“Bad idea,” Shiina says, that place would be crawling with people working for Eiji covertly, “I’ll keep him here till you can set things up at your apartment.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t like that suggestion. Not one bit. “I…. can’t.” He says, and turns away from Shiina’s accusing eyes, “I will think of something.”

Ah yes, how was he going to explain the bullet wounds to his beloved Kimiko? Or to his firm?

“How you are feeling?” She asks him, as he walks Jongin to the chair nearby, “You look awful calm for someone who just-”

“-Thank you, Shiina-San,” Kyungsoo cuts him off, “I will call you if…” He shakes his head again and doesn’t finish his sentence. Sitting Jongin down, he looks at Shiina, “I will call you.”

“You don’t really think you can leave after what you saw, do you?”

He turns to her again with something akin to utter paranoia in his eyes. It is a nice look on him, Shiina decides.

***

3 hours ago…

Kyungsoo smoothes down the shoulders of his jacket so it hangs neat and perfect on the back of Jongin’s chair. His reflection in the mirror looks fresh and ready for work. Behind him, Jongin, who is putting on a shirt, looks like he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep as he contemplates the gargantuan task of buttoning up.

He managed to look… kind of adorable though, with his mussed-up hair and sleepy eyes. He sighs suddenly and trudges back to the bathroom. Kyungsoo shakes his head and turns to the beautiful view from his apartment.

Things had gone really well for him lately. The case of the pedophile had turned into a class action suit, as he had hoped. He won of course, and then unconventionally demanded his clients be punished and receive minor sentences for their attempts at sex with minors, followed by rehabilitation.

He was a media hero. The TV in Jongin’s room is playing an interview he had given outside the courtroom, and he looks pretty damn good, even if he says so himself.

_“I think the people’s focus should be about getting these children into school and off the streets. They are good kids and deserve to have full lives…”_  He was saying, as the star struck reporters drank in every word.

People love him. He is the young Paragon of justice, the new, bright face of the law, the Japanese people’s ray of hope. And the celebrations they had yesterday in honor of his victory were nothing short of extraordinary. He is actually having the best time of his life. Ryoshi must be biting his fingers off for not hiring him. The case load has almost tripled since Kyungsoo joined, and he had a new office overlooking the beautiful Tokyo skyline already, his own piece of the sky.

He heaves a sigh of contentment. Today is going to be a great day.

The door clicks behind him, “You ready?” Jongin was not one to fuss over his appearance, but man did he take a long time to get ready for work. When Jongin doesn’t answer, Kyungsoo turns around, to see if he was having trouble with his tie again, but the person he sees isn’t Jongin, it’s a man dressed in black, pointing something at him.

A gun.

It fires, quiet like the clicking of a pen. Kyungsoo’s lungs draw in a lungful of air, and his eyes close, his heart plummeting to his feet. But the bullet hits something else, a resounding crunch in the air, and when he opens his eyes again, a laptop has fallen on the ground with a bullet hole through it.

His out of focus gaze travels toward the feet of the gunman and finds blood spilling on the floor there. Jongin.

Jongin had shoved a pen or… something, in the man’s neck. The blood is spurting from him. Jongin’s fingers hold the mouth of the man closed, he struggles, tries to kick and shoot again, but Jongin’s grip on him is iron solid and eventually he stops moving.

Jongin puts the body on the ground without so much as a thud, pries the gun out of his hand and holds it out to Kyungsoo, looking out the doorway, probably expecting more to come.

The gun feels cold and unexpectedly heavy in Kyungsoo’s hands. He doesn’t know what to do with it. He had never fired a shot in his life.

Jongin is moving away from him already, taking the Katana he kept near his bed. Kyungsoo follows behind him, holding the gun in front of him with both hands.

“Who are they?” Kyungsoo whispers when he finds his voice, as he steps over the body, almost slipping on the expanding pool of blood, “What do I  _do_?”

The young yakuza keeps advancing till he is at the door that leads out of his bedroom, not making a sound, like a practiced predator his head tilts slightly to the side as if he was listening for something. Then he holds up three fingers.

Three more people outside.  _Oh god._  He is going to die here. Kyungsoo’s breathing picks up and he realizes his hands are numb with the force he is exerting on the handle of the gun. He is the son of a police officer, how had he not learned how to shoot things!?

Jongin’s touch startles him when takes his hands and lifts them so that they are level with his chest instead of how they were pointing at his feet before.

“Keep your gun here.” He mouths, “It will take them down.”

He turns again and unsheathes his sword, pressing himself to the wall. Kyungsoo does the same. Someone is approaching them. It takes Jongin exactly three seconds to bring him down.

One, he smashes the Saya against the man’s neck.

Two, he blocks the incoming swing of the man’s arm with his.

Three, the blade is already the man’s all the way through the man’s spine.

“Kurrah!” Someone yells, and the soft sound of guns with silencers going off fills the air. Invisible things punch holes in everything. The wall behind Kyungsoo vibrates with the force of metal pellets ramming themselves into it, and all he can do is crouch down, the hand with the gun helplessly covering his head.

Jongin darts forward into the middle of this mayhem. Kyungsoo hesitates just for a second but the window of opportunity to follow him is gone and he is now stuck where he is, looking on as the younger slices through the assailants as if they were standing still.

The arc made by his sword, as he swings it through the air turns more scarlet with each swipe. Those too far away to stab, Jongin shoots right between the eyes, the force sending the insides of their skulls splattering on Kyungsoo’s walls.

But the more people he kills the more show up like some sort of sick videogame.

“The guy is here!” Someone yells, and Kyungsoo’s blood runs cold when he sees he’s pointing at him. He immediately looks for Jongin, but he is engrossed in the fight he’s having. Oh no. This is bad, Jongin probably thought Kyungsoo could take care of these men himself, and what a wrong assumption that was.

The men charge at him and Kyungsoo ducks back into his bedroom. He runs through a door that connects to a neighboring room. He can hear them approaching, he looks at the gun he held, his hands were white with the force he was exerting on the handle.

_Come on Kyungsoo, this is no time to be a coward…you have a gun, find a good vantage point and shoot them when they enter the room…_

One enters, and Kyungsoo fires in panic, not really taking aim. It misses him, by about three meters.  _This is not going to work out!_

He runs again, grateful that these guys did not have guns on them. When they burst into the living room once again, there are five more people in the house, Jongin shoots two down and runs out of ammunition.

Kyungsoo, like all the idiots he criticized in the movies, actually trips and falls, his face smashing against the floor. The man behind him almost stabs him, but he rolls away just in time, and kicks the man’s legs out from under him, punching him unconscious.

_Progress,_  he was making progress.

The other one had reached him now, and Kyungsoo remembers belatedly that he has a gun. He points it at the guy, but his hands were still unsteady. The man laughs, he knows, he knows that Kyungsoo can’t do it.  _Damn it_ …

“Kyungsoo!”

A gun is thrown from behind Kyungsoo and it hits the man in the face, sending a spurt of blood from his nose, and he kneels to the ground. Jongin had done that. Kyungsoo seizes the opportunity to smash the butt of his gun against the guy’s head. When he was sure he wouldn’t move anymore, he turns to look for Jongin, or for an exit. He isn’t entirely sure.

Jongin is focused and calm, not even out of breath. He’s looking at the man in front of him. The guy is dressed in a suit almost identical to the kind Jongin usually wears. He’s standing there casually with a hand in his pocket, the gold of the chains on his neck glistens. In his other hand, he is spinning Jongin’s Saya. It looks like had struck Jongin with it.

He does it again but can’t connect as the blue-eyed Yakuza slices through it with his Katana. And Baekhyun in an impossible motion, takes out his own sheathed sword and lands a hit to the side of Jongin’s head.

Jongin shakes his head and rises to his full height again to push forward, the Katana almost makes contact, but the assailant moves away at the last second, not reflexively, not accidentally, but in one swift, very intentioned, well-practiced motion.

He is trained. This is bad.

At this point, the three that knew Kyungsoo was in the house with Jongin were dead, and these new guys hadn’t noticed his presence yet. If he wanted to get out of here alive, now would be the chance. The front door is wide open, and all the yakuza are concentrated in the dining area where they have no clear view of it.

If he makes a run for it, he could probably get away without being noticed.

A huge one is attempting to grab hold of Jongin while he eyes the man with gold chains. Now is the time, it is the perfect time to make his escape. So why isn’t he?

“Baekhyun,” Jongin says, “Nice to see you again.”

The man in question smiles before slowly drawing his own Katana, a beastly thing with a blazing red handle. Like two cobras poised to strike, the two swordsmen eye each other, daring the other to make a move.

This would not end well. Kyungsoo isn’t going to die here because of some idiotic turf war. He crouches low and makes his way to the door, hopeful that no one notices him.

“Get him.” He hears Baekhyun say, nonchalantly. Fuck it. They had seen him.

The bullets rain down around him, one grazes his thigh, and another gets him in the shoulder. By some miracle he doesn’t feel them, and Kyungsoo pulls himself to lean against the back of the couch.

“He isn’t part of this!” He hears Jongin yell. It’s almost lost in the sounds of struggle and the squish the swords make as they cut through flesh, and the cries of men as they lose their lives. Then there is a loud cracking noise, and the whole house is quiet except for the slight crunch of glass under shoes, glass Kyungsoo notices that’s embedded in his feet.

But the quiet is unusual and unsettling. Something tells him to look, and against his better judgment, he does so. He sees Jongin, Jongin is looking at him, but he is unnaturally still.

There is a man behind him, with a baseball bat in his hand. Kyungsoo looks at Jongin again, the possibilities of what could have happened unfolding in his mind as a trickle of red flows down from his hairline.

Almost like it was in slow motion, his eyes close and he falls to his side, unmoving.

No…. no.

Jongin is motionless. The blood dripping over his closed eyes and falling on the glass littered floor. It wakes something terrible in Kyungsoo. He draws his gun, and this time his hand is steady as he takes aim and shoots one, two, and then three people. He runs towards Jongin, one hand checking for a pulse.

“Stop.” He hears Baekhyun say to the others as he walks towards them. Kyungsoo keeps the gun pointing at him.

He finds the pulse, he’s alive. Baekhyun stands about a foot away from him, not at all concerned about the gun. He purses his lips in apparent contemplation, looking at Jongin and then at Kyungsoo.

“You killed one of my men, Do San.” Baekhyun says, “For this guy?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything because anger and something else had clogged his throat. He feels Jongin move behind him, a cold, slick hand holds his and the younger is standing up. Baekhyun smiles, and Kyungsoo has to move abruptly to the side as Jongin stumbles forward.

Baekhyun strikes first, hard and merciless, going straight for Jongin’s neck. Jongin parries at the last second, but something’s wrong. Most wouldn’t have caught it, but the sword cuts a little too close to him and there is a barely-there crinkle in his forehead that shows the blow is affecting him. His grip on the sword is weaker.

The slow curve of Baekhyun’s lips shows that he noticed it too. Damn it. He retrieves his hand in one motion and strikes again, now advancing with each swing of his Katana. He’s forcing Jongin back towards the large one who has his arms raised to grab hold of him when he got there.

It was a little hypnotizing to watch them, the swish the swords make as they swing, block, parry, step, swing, block, parry, step. It was almost as if they could read each other’s minds with the speed it was happening, they were acting purely on instinct, there was not time to think. Jongin is now within arm’s reach of the giant man. Just one more step and he would…

Baekhyun advances another step, Jongin dodges, the former changes directions abruptly, doing a spin midair and coming down on Jongin with a blow that would have ended in Jongin losing his grip on the Katana, but Jongin, somehow anticipating the move, moves  _towards_  Baekhyun instead of backing away and rams the handle of his sword right into his face.

Baekhyun crumples to the ground and his sword goes clattering to the side. Jongin advances toward him, back straight and posture perfect, each step sure and filled with clear, dark, murderous intent. Kyungsoo had never seen that look in his eyes before. It was a powerful,  _powerful_  emptiness that cared for nothing and no one. It was just ravenous for blood and aching to inflict pain on anything that came its way. It changed the very air around them, and the ominousness makes the remaining few back away.

Jongin turns the writhing Baekhyun with his foot, steps on his neck, pressing down. The big goon snaps out of his trance and makes to grab Jongin again, the moment he moves, Jongin turns his head to look at him, and in a strike that Kyungsoo’s eyes are barely able to catch, pierces a hole in the man’s head, right through his eye.

The man stops moving, and Jongin gives him a little push that makes the body fall away from the sword, all the while, not easing the pressure on Baekhyun. He graces the fallen Yakuza with his attention again, pushing his bloodied hair away from his face.

“Who?” He asks, low in his throat. His sword hooks at the edge of Baekhyun’s ear.

He takes too long to answer, so with a flick of his wrist, Jongin slices his ear clean off, piercing and all. If Baekhyun had any air in his lungs, he would have screamed, but since he didn’t, all he does is flail his legs about like an upside-down millipede.

“Faggot…” Baekhyun grinds out, “Cocksucker…!”

Kyungsoo can see Jongin’s jaw clench. He’s furious.

His sword draws a straight, shallow line across the man’s chest, precise as a surgeon with a scalpel, all the way down to his crotch, “Mmm, yes. I like men, very, very much.” He says, Baekhyun has real fear on his face now, and he stops moving.

“I will ask you again,” Jongin continues, now addressing the gathered goons, “One of your dogs can answer, or be responsible for their master getting neutered.”

Their master’s struggles have almost ceased now, and his face is turning an alarming shade of red. After a moment of hesitation, “Eiji-Sama desu!” one of them screams, “Eiji-Sama!”

“ _And?_ ” Jongin must have let up on the guys throat because he starts drawing in harsh breaths and wastes no time spewing obscenities.

“Hi-his businesses have all been destroyed because of this guy,” The man points at Kyungsoo, “I thought I’d come here and put him in his fucking place. Ask him where he was getting his information.” He says, “And look who I find in his house, faggot!”

Jongin had been expecting that. He gives Baekhyun one last look before letting him go. The Yakuza gulps a lungful of air and gives his discarded Katana one last look before he is helped up by his men, and they run.

Jongin takes his phone out of his pocket, “Ah, Moshi Moshi, Oyabun Sama. Eiji’s men attacked me and an associate of mine.” He waits for her response, nodding as he listened, ‘Hai, hai… understood.”

He turns to Kyungsoo, he probably looks shell shocked because Jongin’s expression turns to one of concern almost immediately, “Are you alright?”

He doesn’t understand what he’s saying. Wait…. he can’t hear what he’s saying; “I can’t hear what you’re saying!” Kyungsoo’s breathing goes erratic and borders on hyperventilation, “I can’t hear you!”

Jongin crouches in front of him, “It’s because of this,” he points to the gun still sitting in Kyungsoo’s vice grip, “It’ll be fine in sometime… _temporary_.” He says, pulling him up, “We have to get out of here, Shiina San’s house is our best bet. We can take care of our wounds.”

***

“What do you mean I can’t leave?”

Shiina offers Kyungsoo some green tea, it was old and probably expired, but it was the only nonalcoholic beverage she had other than water. And everyone knows stale tea trumps water. Always.

“Do you think he might have a bleed in his brain?” She asks him.

“You’re the Doctor,  _you tell me!_ ” Kyungsoo seethes, knocking the tea out of her hands. It spills on the red carpet.

“He may, that’s why I’m having him scanned.” She says, leaning back on the armchair she is sitting on, and Kyungsoo starts pacing the space in front of her, his gaze focused on an indistinct point on the floor. He is all cleaned up and the bullet in his shoulder is gone, thanks to the equipment the Oyabun had sent over.

She adds some sugar cubes to her tea, hoping it would mask the disgusting smell, and finds that Kyungsoo is staring at her when she looks up, “What?”

“I’m leaving.” He says, “I have some business to attend to.”

“You sure you want to go to work looking like that?” Shiina asks.

“Then I’ll head home first.” He snaps.

“What if they are still waiting around for you…Eiji’s men?”

He doesn’t answer. “Ookay” She takes a sip of the green tea, it tastes like ear wax, “How about another question then? Like…how did it feel to murder someone?”

Kyungsoo pales and takes a good minute or two to formulate the next few words, and comes up with a disappointing, “I have to go.”

“I know,” she says, rolling her eyes, “What will you do when Jongin finds out what you’re up to?”

Kyungsoo recovers fast. She would give him that, “What are you talking about?” He asks, to buy more time, no doubt, and with an expression that was the best imitation of honest confusion she had ever seen.

She smiles, and it’s a knowing smile. Designed for the precise purpose of making him uncomfortable, “Is there more than one thing you’re hiding from him?”

“He knows how I feel about Kimiko.” He says, the clever boy, “I’ve never hidden it from him. If he chose to stick around after that, then it’s his choice.”

“He isn’t the one with a girlfriend he just asked to move in with him, you know.”

Kyungsoo takes an angry step towards her, “Have you been spying on me?” He hisses.

She giggles. “You fall for it each time, don’t you?”

Kyungsoo grits his teeth, “Just mind your own business Shiina San.” He says.

“Does the fact that you shot someone make you feel less antagonistic towards Jongin?”

He is very much affected by it. The fact that he was failing at hiding it, revealed to what extent. He finally decides on a scoff and says, “I’m not antagonistic towards him.” in a way that made it sound more like a question than a statement.

She shrugs, she would not offer him an escape route.

“I’m not like him.” He says then, thoughtfully, “I only killed that man because my own life was in danger, I had no choice _._ ”

“Yes, of course, and Jongin kills people because he is a sadistic murderer.” And for the second time that day, Kyungsoo snaps his mouth shut, because he knows he’s being a hypocrite.

Jongin chooses that point to descend the stairs, he heard them talking.

“Knew they’d fit you.” Shiina stands up, walking over to him and adjusting the shirt collar. He holds her wrist, and stares at her with a strange look in his eyes. He seems to have realized that they belonged to her dead son.

“I will have them dry cleaned and retuned to you-”

“Why would you do that?” She laughs, this silly boy worried about the strangest things, “Anyway, Kyungsoo here was about to leave…”

“Ah, about that…” Jongin finally looks at Kyungsoo, “We…uh…you will have to come with me to the Mansion.”

“Mansion? What mansion?” Kyungsoo asks.

 “The Oyabun’s Mansion.”

Things would only get more interesting from here on.


End file.
